SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn. — Authorities need your help finding a missing Cordova mother.
Investigators are calling her disappearance “concerning” after she was reported missing to the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office on Friday.
Detectives said Taquila Hayes has no known mental health issues and is a nurse at Methodist Hospital. She has not been seen at work since the end of May.
Hayes’ family says she talked to them at the end of May when she said she would be attending her nephew’s graduation in Mississippi, but she never showed up.
“I just took it as, well, maybe she was working, because that’s the only time she will miss an event is if she can’t get anyone to cover her shift,” Hayes’ mother, Roberta Nutall, explained.
However, Nutall says she hasn’t heard from her daughter since then, and now she fears the worst. Her daughter missed her 11-year-old son’s birthday and first day of school.
“To be honest with you, with all that has transpired, I don’t believe my daughter is living. That’s a hard thing to say. It’s killing me on the inside, but I just don’t believe my daughter is with us anymore,” Nutall said through tears Tuesday afternoon.
While the family says they never heard from Hayes, they were still able to communicate with her husband. Hayes’ sister, Samantha Henderson, says he claimed Hayes had been around.
Henderson started doing some investigating. That’s when she says her sister’s husband told her the last time he saw her was June 1 when she left their house off Starcross in Cordova without her car.
“I just want everybody to know that we would have done something sooner if he wouldn’t have lied. He was still placing my sister in that house. For whatever reason, I don’t know,” Henderson said.
The family filed a report with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office on Friday. They made their own signs with Hayes’ picture and have put them up around the neighborhood.
They say Hayes is a hard worker and a private person.
“She’s fun, she’s very easy going, she’s bubbly, she’s real respectful. I just want people to know her for who she is,” Nutall said.
Captain Anthony Buckner, with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, says deputies are canvassing the neighborhood and looking for surveillance video.
“This is a very complex and complicated investigation,” he explained.
WREG knocked on the Hayes’ door hoping to speak with Taquila’s husband. A person opened the blinds at the front door but when we identified who we were they refused to acknowledge us or open the door.
If you know anything about the 41-year-old’s disappearance, call (901) 222-5600 or Crime Stoppers at 901-528-CASH.
