14 DAY TRIAL // A 25-year-old woman from Norton Shores, Michigan disappeared on Friday, April 26 after a night shift at a gas station.
Police are looking at Jessica Heeringa's case as an abduction, after the mother-of-one vanished as the end of her shift neared, at 11:15 p.m.
According to Fox 17, Heeringa went missing from Exxon Mobil gas station on East Sternberg Avenue.
She could still be wearing a blue T-shirt emblazoned with the station's logo, as featured in the photo accompanying this news piece. The store was not equipped with surveillance cameras at the time.
Witnesses describe a silver minivan, which could be a Chrysler Town & Country, drive away from the station at that time. Police are looking for the driver, who is described as medium-built man in his 30s, who is either light brown or blonde haired.
“A passerby had observed this vehicle near the store, parked near the store, and observed the vehicle driving away,” a spokesperson for the police department says.
“As a store clerk, she has contact with a lot of people. [] Most of the people who have talked to us so far have indicated that she’s a very pleasant person – very sociable – so she engages in conversation with all of her customers, so it’s very possible that she may have known this person,” the rep describes.
Co-workers and family members agree that the assailant is either a regular at the gas station or a person she is acquainted with.
“This was also NOT just some random person that took her. [...] It was someone she knew. [...] We all were well aware that there were no cameras, and we would be working alone,” another member of the staff posts on Facebook.
“I’m sure she was abducted. [...] (There was) no struggle. She was cleaning a machine, she left her car keys, (and) no money was taken from the gas station,” mother Shelly Heeringa tells Michigan Live.