Michaela “Mickey” Shunick Missing, No Trace of Louisiana Student Found After May 19 Bike Ride

Michaela “Mickey” Shunick has been missing since May 19th, and dozens of volunteer searchers are retracing the college student’s steps in the hopes of learning more about her disappearance.

Mickey Shunick has been missing since 2AM that day, when she left a friend’s home in Lafayette, Louisiana on her bicycle and failed to return to her own residence. Shunick’s family says they knew something was horribly wrong when the 22-year-old senior anthropology major at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette failed to show up at her brother’s graduation.

Since Saturday morning, when Shunick missed the ceremony, family and friends have been tirelessly searching for her, saying that while they believe she was abducted, they also believe that the missing student is still alive.

Mickey Shunick’s father, Tom Shunick, says that the constant worry regarding his daughter’s fate is wearing on the family, describing the torture of not knowing how his daughter disappeared or why:

“If she has been taken by somebody, where is she? What are they doing to her? It’s better being around people like over here. It’s tougher when you’re alone at night.”

The elder Shunick also says that he wishes that the search for Mickey had begun earlier, explaining that the timing of Mickey Shunick’s disappearance over the weekend meant security footage from various businesses she would have passed was not pulled for days by law enforcement:

“None of the video cameras got checked over the weekend because the managers weren’t in and waited two days to check the video cameras. If somebody has abducted her and taken her on the interstate [highway] or something, they got a two-day head start.”

No major leads have yet been discovered in Mickey Shunick’s disappearance.