The mother of a Chicago woman who went missing during a yoga retreat in the Bahamas has revealed baffling new details about her daughter’s disappearance and traveled to the Caribbean nation on Wednesday to try to get to the bottom of it.
Taylor Casey’s concerned mother, Colette Seymour, revealed in an interview with CBS News the same day that her daughter’s cell phone had been found at the bottom of the ocean.
Seymour said the information surrounding her daughter’s disappearance doesn’t make sense and she needs to get to the scene herself and help search for her daughter to get answers.
“My intuition as a mother didn’t line up with the answers I was getting and they weren’t what I wanted to hear,” Seymour told ABC News.
“A young woman called me and said, ‘Have you heard from Taylor?’ I knew she was from the yoga retreat so I was looking at the phone and she said, ‘Taylor didn’t show up to yoga class.'”
According to the Royal Bahamas Police, Casey, 41, was last seen on Wednesday, June 19, at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat on Paradise Island.
The yoga retreat center said Casey never showed up for her Thursday morning class and that it had notified her family, local authorities and the U.S. Embassy in the Bahamas.
According to the news station, Seymour said she last heard from her daughter on Tuesday, when she shared a photo of herself swimming at the beach and that the retreat center said she attended classes on Wednesday evening.
Casey’s close friend Emily Williams is also heading to the island nation to shed light on the current status of the case, telling ABC they are receiving “sparse” updates.
“We want to make sure they are taking this case as seriously as we are,” Williams said of local investigators, “and we know they need to be there in person to get all the information they need so they can fully advocate for Taylor.”
Casey has practiced yoga for 15 years and was attending the retreat to further her yoga study, and her family said she was excited to return to her hometown and share what she’s learned with the Chicago community.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force told ABC they met with the family on Wednesday.
“We need to know where Taylor is,” Williams told CBS. “We need to know what happened, we need to know the full story.”
The tourist’s disappearance comes as the US State Department has issued a travel advisory for the Bahamas since earlier this year, warning Americans to exercise caution when visiting the tropical paradise due to an increase in violent crime.
“Violent crimes, including theft, armed robbery, and sexual assault, occur in both tourist and non-tourist areas,” the State Department says on its website.
Neither a representative for Casey’s family nor the Royal Bahamas Police Force immediately responded to inquiries seeking more information about the discovery of her phone.
