‘Just come home’: Family hoping for missing woman’s safe return

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Mich. (WNDU) - In rural Three Rivers, it’s so quiet you can just about hear your soul.

But there’s an anxiety, as 73-year-old Marilee Furlong is still missing after a week.

“So, I started screaming her name,” said Roy Allen Burr, Jr., Marilee’s son-in-law. “No response or anything.”

Marilee, who has Alzheimer’s and dementia, hasn’t been seen since around 6:30 a.m. on Memorial Day while she was staying temporarily with her daughter and son-in-law at their home in the 55000 block of Flatbush Road in Flowerfield Township.

Marilee was set to move into an assisted living facility the same day she disappeared from the family home.

“We had drones out here,” Roy said. “We had K-9 [teams] out here. We had mounted police out here.”

Roy said the family received credible reports that Marilee had been seen at some point last week on Pioneer Street in Marcellus, which is in neighboring Cass County.

“The individual that has creditable evidence of meeting her, seeing her, talked to her for a little bit, asked if she needed any help, and she said, ‘No.’ That she was fine and that she’s just trying to get back to her grandkids,” Roy said. “That’s all that she was trying to do, was get back to her grandkids. But she didn’t want to get into anybody’s vehicle.”

What’s followed has been a wider search by St. Joseph County and Cass County detectives along with assistance from the Michigan Professional Search and Rescue Team, plus people in the community looking for Marilee.

And if Marilee happens to hear this story, Roy wants you to know this…

“Just come home, Mom,” he said. “Your grandkid’s need you. Your daughter, your son, they need you. Just come home, or at least tell us where you’re at and let us know if that’s where you want to stay. We just want to know where you’re at.”

If you have any information of Marilee’s whereabouts, especially if you live near the area where she went missing and have video footage, you are asked to call the St Joseph County Central Dispatch Center at (269) 467-4195 or call 911.

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