Dawn VadBunker: Mom Of 2 Who Vanished On Way To Work Is Found — But That’s Not The End Of The Story

Dawn VadBunker is a 39-year-old mom of two who suddenly and mysteriously disappeared after heading to work from the home she currently shares with her parents in Oxnard, California, to the office where she works as an assistant property manager in Santa Monica. That was July 3.

Described by her family as a positive, upbeat person whose optimistic nature never faltered despite going through an annulment to her year-long marriage, Dawn was excited to help her parents with their planned July 4 party the next day. She was planning to spend the night in Santa Monica, which was not unusual because her commute was about an hour-and-a-half. Both of Dawn’s children are now adults, and she has been living with her parents recently.

But instead of coming home on the holiday, Dawn — or someone using her phone — sent a text message to her mom, Laura VadBunker, saying that she wouldn’t be home for a few more days.

And then — nothing. Her parents tried numerous times to reach her on her cell phone, but never received a response.

Dawn, an assistant property manager, had been headed to work for a meeting with her boss, a woman described by Dawn’s parents as her friend in addition to their work relationship. They tried reaching the boss, too, but nothing came back — which was very strange. The boss owned multiple phones and was rarely off the grid.

Dawn’s Facebook page, usually alight with three or four posts per day, also went quiet. Her parents began to get a sick feeling. Something terrible, they worried, may have happened to their daughter.

“I try not to think about what could possibly happen, but there are animals in this world, disguised as humans, that do terrible things. That is my fear,” her dad David VadBunker told KCBS-TV on Tuesday.

“I’ve been going through all of her things, trying to find some clue. Dawn would never just run away.”

But as it turned out, Dawn did just run away.

Or at least that’s how things looked on Wednesday morning when police located her at a motel in Deschutes County, Oregon. Sheriff’s deputies spotted her car there at about 3:20 a.m. on Wednesday.

The deputies were able to “make contact” with Dawn, and put her on the phone with police in Oxnard, as well — but not her family.

“She expressed her deep regret for all the worry she caused but assured law enforcement personnel in Oregon and Oxnard that she would be in contact with her family soon.”

So what happened?

That remains a mystery. Police either did not know or wouldn’t say whether Dawn was alone when they found her. But police on Tuesday received a witness report that the mom had been spotted with “a female.”

Police contacted friends and neighbors of that “female,” but no one had seen or heard from her, either. Oxnard police said that Dawn was “potentially with that female.” Was that woman Dawn’s boss? As of Wednesday morning, no one was saying.

At least Dawn’s case has a happy, if bizarre and puzzling, ending. The case of another missing California mom, Monique Figueroa, who disappeared May 19, remains unsolved.

Why Dawn VadBunker did not speak with her parents immediately after she was found remains unclear as well — and at least as far as police revealed, the mom did not say when, or if, she would be coming home.

[Image: KTLA-TV]