Missing Indiana tourist last seen in South Florida found safe after parents' plea for help
The parents of a missing tourist from Indiana pleaded for the public's help in finding her some five weeks after she was last seen in Sunrise.
An emotional Elizabeth and Larry Surbey spoke with CBS News Miami on Thursday at Sunrise Police headquarters, where they came to pick up two suitcases belonging to their daughter Brenda Surbey. Police recovered her luggage near a park on Sunset Strip near 68th Avenue on the morning of Feb. 8, where 60-year-old Brenda Surbey was last seen.
The Broward County Sheriff's Office is the lead agency and has also appealed for help. Brenda Surbey is 5'5" tall and is 180 pounds and has brown hair and brown eyes. She was reported to be found safe later Thursday, the Broward County Sheriff's Office said.
"She's my daughter — I want her back," said Elizabeth Surbey. "I want to know that she is safe. I want to know that she is making better decisions. She is bipolar and I don't think she has her medication and she is by herself. She has had a rough life and sometimes has made some poor decisions. She had a twin sister who died when she was just 4 and she has been by herself struggling all her life because of that."
The Surbeys told CBS News Miami that their daughter had not disappeared before.
"We are picking up her luggage and we don't know where she is right now," said Larry Surbey. "I would like to find her. She flew down from Indiana and stayed with us one night in Weston. She is my only daughter and it would mean everything to get her back."
Larry Surbey said he and his daughter had a disagreement after he said she had spent a lot of money at a grocery store.
"She went to a grocery store and bought groceries and had my credit card, and it was such an exorbitant amount. It was $860 on my credit card, and the credit card company shut it off and would not pay for it," he said. "Then she called me and said she wanted help getting groceries. She wanted me to come down to the store and get the groceries. She also wanted me to get her purse and bring it to her."
He also said his daughter had another request.
"When I saw she wanted me to rent her a car so she could go to Miami because she had some sort of ball game that she had a ticket for," he added. "She said I need to go to Miami but I could not rent her a car."
Larry Surbey and his wife are from Carmel, Indiana, just north of Indianapolis, and said his daughter had flown down to South Florida from Indiana.
"She just said she was not going to come back to the resort with me and was going to take off on her own and she took off with her suitcases," he said.
The Surbeys have hired private investigator Ana Campos, who told CBS News Miami that "she disappeared into thin air."
"All we have is her luggage and we know as a tourist in South Florida it can be pretty dangerous with no money, no cards, no phone," she said. "There has been nothing. Not one tip. Not one sighting. You just don't disappear into thin air."
"She doesn't have a purse. And the likelihood of her going from Sunrise to Miami, well it is unlikely unless she got into some vehicle. That is the only possible thing I can think of at this point," Campos told CBS News Miami.
Her family has also appealed for help on Facebook.
