Family asks for help finding missing woman

The family of a missing Carson City woman is asking for the public's help in locating her.

Pat Anderson of Petaluma, Calif., said Monday that her niece, Stephanie Baxley, 53, was last seen by a Carson City deputy near the Silver Saddle Ranch on Thursday. Baxley said she was camping and the officer left her alone, said Carson City Sheriff's Capt. Clay Wall.

On Friday, said Anderson, Baxley's mother received a disturbing letter from Baxley postmarked Oct. 27 in which Baxley was saying goodbye.

"Then when friends went to her house it was empty," said Anderson.

The deputy who made contact with Baxley on Thursday returned to where he'd last seen her. She and her vehicle were gone.

Wall said the Sheriff's Office's volunteer aerosquadron unit was in the air Monday searching for Baxley's vehicle in the hills south of Mexican Dam to no avail.

Anderson said Baxley's cousins have come to town to search for her also.

"They are driving around as much as they can in the obscure places they can find to look for her car," she said. "They searched the entire Silver Saddle Ranch area and along that river through there. They just need more eyes or more people to help. Somebody had to have seen her."

Baxley, who worked as a home health care nurse, is 5 feet 7 inches tall with straight blond hair and weighs about 140 pounds. She drives a 2002 white Ford Explorer with Nevada license plates 917MTP.

"Her letter was very sad. Her mother was sobbing as she read it to me," said Anderson. Then Anderson spoke directly to her niece. "Come home. We love you. We'll make it all right," she said.

Anyone with information on Baxley's whereabouts can call Carson City Sheriff's non-emergency dispatch at 887-2007.

*edited to correct the color of the Ford Explorer. The family has since learned the vehicle is white.