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NEAR OLYMPIA - A woman heading to her stepfather's house was "beyond lost" when she and her 8-year-old son took one wrong turn after another through the backroads of Thurston County and onto a private Puget Sound beach, authorities said Monday.
The minivan driven by Shantina Smiley, 29, was found partially submerged Sunday with its doors open. A wallet containing Smiley driver's license, some cash and credit cards were found in the van, but neither she nor her son was anywhere in sight.
"Apparently she got stuck and abandoned the car," said Lt. Chris Mealy of the county sheriff's office. There was nothing inside the 2005 Dodge Caravan to make detectives think any crime happened, he added.
Detectives have traced Smiley's path from her home in Silverdale to the far reaches of Thurston County, more than 50 miles north of her stepfather's house in Castle Rock in Cowlitz County and far from any road that would have led her there.
Mealy said Smiley had called her fiance Saturday night in northwest Olympia to update him on her location because she had left her cell phone at home. An employee at an east Olympia diner where she bought a corn dog told investigators she left without her purchase and then tripped and fell walking back to her van, but Mealy said the fall was not serious.
The elderly couple who lived nearby said they let Smiley use their phone to call her grandfather, gave her son a piece of pizza, and then directed her back to the freeway. She wasn't heard from again.
"The homeowners said she acted nervous because she was lost," Mealy said. She was not injured but spoke of an accident, which investigators believe may have been a reference to falling down at the diner.
Mealy said that as she left the home, Smiley made another series of driving errors that eventually led her to a hard-to-find dirt path and driving onto the beach. "It gets dark up there. It gets really, really dark," Mealy said. "I was there Sunday afternoon. I had trouble finding that trail in the daylight."
Friends and family described Smiley as a responsible, mature, rational woman. She has no history of substance abuse, Mealy said. Her fiance, Robb Simmons, and Smiley's stepfather began searching for Smiley and her son, Azriel Carver, after she didn't arrive at their planned meeting spot Saturday. Azriel is a second-grader at Vinland Elementary in the North Kitsap School District, according to school principal Charley McCabe.
"I have no idea of why she would have ended up down that road," Simmons wrote on his website. Mealy said Smiley has "no friends or relatives or lovers or boyfriends in Olympia or Thurston County."
"Somebody somewhere knows something," Mealy said. "She could be missing voluntarily. Something untoward could have happened to her. She could have done something untoward to her son. We have no clue."
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Police say Smiley was heading to Castle Rock from Silverdale, but her fiance, Rob Simmons, says it doesn't add up that she would even be in the area of Dana Passage.
"Being that it was down a dead-end road, and then going down a dirt road around a bluff to the water makes no sense," said Simmons, "she would not go down that road, it's a dead-end."
Simmons says they don't have any friends in that area, and worries something sinister may have happened.
"I'm scared that something bad happened," said Simmons, " and I just want to say to whoever has them, send them home please, just drop them off somewhere, let them be found, let them come home, let them be safe."
Shantina Smiley is 29-years-old, stands about 5'9" tall, and weighs about 140 pounds. She has dark brown hair and brown eyes.
Her son, Azriel Carver is 4'2" tall, about 100 pounds. He has blond hair in a mohawk style, and has brown eyes.
Simmons described them as a "Scout" family, because of how involved they are with the Boy Scouts of America,
Friends say she is responsible, and very loving, and has no history of drug use.
Monday investigators will continue to interview people around Dana Passage who may have seen or heard something Saturday night.
If you know anything, or have seen anything, call 911, or the Thurston County Sheriff's Office dispatch at 360-704-2749
http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-031410-missingmomandson,0,6651388.story