About two weeks ago, the recently-elected sheriff of Amherst County, Virginia, was alerted about a missing person in the area. “My chief deputy saw some comments on Facebook about this lady’s disappearance,” Sheriff Jimmy Ayers told Dateline. Someone pulled the post up so he could take a look.
The lady was 46-year-old Elsie Wiggington. She disappeared from Amherst in June 2023.
Sheriff Ayers told Dateline it was the first time he had heard about Elsie’s case, but he’s determined to find out what happened to her.“This case should have been looked at a long time ago,” he said.
As a foster kid, Elsie grew up moving around the Amherst County area. She made friends, like Tracey Coleman, along the way. “Elsie and I were both foster kids. While we were not placed in the same settings, we had a kinship because of that,” Tracey explained. “I was the big sister, she was the little sister.”
It was easy to love Elsie. “She was probably one of the kindest people that I have ever met,” Tracey said. “She was an amazing mom.”
At the time of her disappearance, Elsie lived in Amherst with her husband. Her children, Sativa, 24, and Carlito, 20, lived with their father — Elsie’s ex-husband.
Elsie’s children were her world. “She always made sure that we had everything that we could want,” Sativa Rucker told Dateline about her mother. “She was an amazing woman. Very thoughtful and caring.”
Elsie was hardworking, too, according to friend Tracey Coleman. She worked tirelessly for years to become a nurse. “In the foster care system, there is only a three percent chance that a person will move on to get a secondary degree,” she said. “Elsie and I pushed ourselves. We were like, ‘We are going to make this work.’”
Defying all odds, Elsie worked her way up, eventually becoming director of nursing at Fairmont Crossing Health Rehabilitation Center in Amherst. “While it was tiring and stressful work, she enjoyed it,” Tracey said.
Tracey said she last spoke to Elsie on June 23, 2023. She said that Elsie called her, crying, saying she was coming to Maryland. “So, we had plans in motion and then she didn’t show,” Tracey recalled.
Sativa said she last heard from her mother two days later -- on June 25-- after she called her mother for a recipe. Elsie didn’t answer the phone, but she did respond. “She texted me and gave me what I was trying to cook,” Sativa said.
Sativa tried to get in touch with her mother again the next day, but couldn’t reach her. “I just assumed that was because she was working. And then a couple hours later, her job called me asking if I heard from her,” she said.
Elsie hadn’t shown up for work.
Sheriff Ayers told Dateline that at 3:30 p.m. on June 26, 2023, Elsie’s husband called to report her missing. According to the report, Elsie’s husband told authorities he last saw Elsie on the evening of June 25. She was wearing pajamas and packing.
Dateline reached out to Elsie’s husband earlier this week for his recollection of events prior to Elsie’s disappearance but has not yet received a response.
Sheriff Ayers said Elsie’s job called to report her missing around 5:40 p.m. on June 26.
In the weeks that followed, multiple people also called to report Elsie missing, including her sister Victoria Seal, and her ex-husband, the sheriff said.
According to Elsie’s family, nothing was done about the reports. “They had came back and told me that they had reason to believe she had left voluntarily, and everything was OK, and we didn’t need to worry,” Victoria Seal told Dateline.
Elsie’s family and friends did not agree. “I knew that she would not leave her kids. She built her life around being a nurse and her family and her kids,” friend Tracey Coleman said.
Sativa Rucker told Dateline her mother wouldn’t have missed big family events. “My youngest son’s first birthday is the same month she went missing,” Sativa said.
Despite the silence from her mother, Sativa told Dateline that she held out hope that Elsie would reemerge. “I had spoken with police at the time and one of the officers had told me that she had another lady do something similar and she had come back for the holidays,” Sativa said.
But Thanksgiving came and went. Christmas came and went. Birthdays were missed. There was no sign of Elsie Wiggington.
Sativa said her father filed an additional missing persons report around Christmas of 2023.But, the family says, there was still no movement in the investigation.
In January of 2024 Sheriff Ayers took office. He had retired from the sheriff’s position in 2015, but came out of retirement, he told Dateline, to make change. “I said, you know, ‘I think I can make a difference if the people would give me another opportunity,’” he said.
Once Sheriff Ayers learned about Elsie’s case, he said he immediately took action. “I had no knowledge of it previously, so looking through all of the reports and narratives, obviously there are some concerns that I have,” he said. “I notified the Virginia State Police and asked them to send me an agent or agents to meet with me.”
He told Dateline that his office, along with the Virginia State Police Department, are now actively investigating Elsie’s disappearance. He said they are currently collecting information they hope will give them greater insight on what happened to Elsie.
“We’re gonna do everything we can do to find out where she is or what happened to her, one way or another,” he told Dateline. “That is my goal.”
While Elsie’s family and friends aren’t sure what happened to her, they won’t stop pushing for answers. “She was the director of nursing. You don’t just walk away from that,” sister Victoria Seal said. “She’s not going to abandon her children, her grandchildren.”
Friend Tracey Coleman agreed. “She would never put her children through this heartache,” she said.
As the one-year anniversary of Elsie’s disappearance approaches, Victoria is organizing a search for her sister. “I’ve got quite a few people that are willing to help,” she said. “I’m about to post it on social media to see if I can get more people involved.”
Daughter Sativa Rucker just wants answers. “I miss talking with her. She was my biggest supporter. She’s been there for anything,” she said. “I just want to know that she’s OK.”
Elsie is 5’2” and 145 lbs. She has brown hair and eyes.
Anyone with information about her disappearance is asked to call the Amherst County Sheriff’s Office at 434-946-9300.
Kyani Reid
