Chris Seper
Plain Dealer Reporter (Cleveland, Ohio, USA)
Mien Sin's march to Cleveland started on a Cambodian dirt path toward a Thai refugee camp.
"I remember her carrying me because the dirt road was so hot," said Ratha Williams, Sin's daughter.
The family came to America in 1975, when Williams was 6 years old, to escape the violence of Cambodia's communist rebels.
Williams fears her mother is now dead. Sin, 80, disappeared along with most of her jewelry Thursday.
Police arrested Williams' estranged husband, Henry, on Saturday, on suspicion of theft and burglary. They found him with some of Sin's possessions in the family car. But police will not say he is connected to her disappearance or whether Sin is dead.
"There's no explanation for her being gone, but we're not prepared to say anything violent happened to her," Cleveland police spokesman Lt. Tom Stacho said. "We just don't know."
Officers contin ued to search for her Monday, contacting a Buddhist temple outside Columbus that Sin has visited. But Ratha Williams rolled her eyes at the thought her mother could travel so far. Her mother disappeared without her medications and the baby-blue stroller she used as a walker to lessen the strain on her arthritic knees.
Sin's journey to the West Side home she shared with the Williamses on Hope Avenue was not easy.
Missionaries greeted the Sins at the Thai refugee camp. They went to Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, settled for a time in Ashland, Ohio, with the help of a local church, and came to Cleveland in 1981.
While her husband worked, Mien Sin was the life of the party, her daughter said. When no one would dance at Cambodian gatherings, Sin -- then in her seventies -- would dance until others joined in. She tended a garden near Hope Avenue filled with chili peppers, squash, basil and other herbs.
Ratha Williams met Henry in 1999. He was a Gulf War veteran studying social work at Cuyahoga Community College, Ratha Williams said. The two dated, had two children and married the day after Thanksgiving in 2004. They went to the courthouse on Ratha's lunch break.
But soon after their marriage -- and about the time Sin's husband died -- Henry Williams developed a powerful drug addiction, Ratha Williams said.
"I learned the hard way, when things started disappearing in the house," she said.
Williams has one drug-related conviction in 1995, according to the Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas. Since then, he has had only minor scrapes with the law.
The couple is filing for bankruptcy, Ratha Williams said. A mortgage company started to foreclose on the Hope Avenue home in October, according to court records.
On Thursday, the Williamses couldn't find Sin. They pried open a locked door to Sin's private room in the back of the house and she wasn't there. On Friday, Henry Williams said he was going to take the family car and search for his mother-in-law.
Henry Williams didn't return. Ratha called the police. They found him more than 24 hours later.
Anyone with information on Mein Sin's whereabouts is asked to call police at 216-623-5100.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
cseper@plaind.com, 216-999-4169
"I remember her carrying me because the dirt road was so hot," said Ratha Williams, Sin's daughter.
The family came to America in 1975, when Williams was 6 years old, to escape the violence of Cambodia's communist rebels.
Williams fears her mother is now dead. Sin, 80, disappeared along with most of her jewelry Thursday.
Police arrested Williams' estranged husband, Henry, on Saturday, on suspicion of theft and burglary. They found him with some of Sin's possessions in the family car. But police will not say he is connected to her disappearance or whether Sin is dead.
"There's no explanation for her being gone, but we're not prepared to say anything violent happened to her," Cleveland police spokesman Lt. Tom Stacho said. "We just don't know."
Officers contin ued to search for her Monday, contacting a Buddhist temple outside Columbus that Sin has visited. But Ratha Williams rolled her eyes at the thought her mother could travel so far. Her mother disappeared without her medications and the baby-blue stroller she used as a walker to lessen the strain on her arthritic knees.
Sin's journey to the West Side home she shared with the Williamses on Hope Avenue was not easy.
Missionaries greeted the Sins at the Thai refugee camp. They went to Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, settled for a time in Ashland, Ohio, with the help of a local church, and came to Cleveland in 1981.
While her husband worked, Mien Sin was the life of the party, her daughter said. When no one would dance at Cambodian gatherings, Sin -- then in her seventies -- would dance until others joined in. She tended a garden near Hope Avenue filled with chili peppers, squash, basil and other herbs.
Ratha Williams met Henry in 1999. He was a Gulf War veteran studying social work at Cuyahoga Community College, Ratha Williams said. The two dated, had two children and married the day after Thanksgiving in 2004. They went to the courthouse on Ratha's lunch break.
But soon after their marriage -- and about the time Sin's husband died -- Henry Williams developed a powerful drug addiction, Ratha Williams said.
"I learned the hard way, when things started disappearing in the house," she said.
Williams has one drug-related conviction in 1995, according to the Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas. Since then, he has had only minor scrapes with the law.
The couple is filing for bankruptcy, Ratha Williams said. A mortgage company started to foreclose on the Hope Avenue home in October, according to court records.
On Thursday, the Williamses couldn't find Sin. They pried open a locked door to Sin's private room in the back of the house and she wasn't there. On Friday, Henry Williams said he was going to take the family car and search for his mother-in-law.
Henry Williams didn't return. Ratha called the police. They found him more than 24 hours later.
Anyone with information on Mein Sin's whereabouts is asked to call police at 216-623-5100.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
cseper@plaind.com, 216-999-4169
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