Family seeking teen missing since November

It's the not knowing that scares Robin Lenau's family. They don't know where she went. They don't know if she's taking her medications. And they don't know if she's alive.

The 18-year-old with bipolar disorder disappeared in early November from a Perryville shelter, reportedly leaving in a car with an unidentified man for Poplar Bluff, said her mother, Kathy Lenau. This small bit of information came from a shelter employee only after Kathy repeatedly asked where her daughter had gone, she said.

Kathy and her husband, Tom, live in Hillsboro. The Lenaus adopted Robin and her twin sister, Serena, when they were 9 years old, Kathy said. The girls had been in the state foster care system up until then.

The unpredictability of Robin's condition may put her in danger.

"It is possible for her to be violent with someone else, more so than with herself," Kathy said. "If she's not on her meds, she can have a short temper. With this disease, they can go into a rage."

When Robin turned 18 in April, she joined the Job Corps program in Puxico, Mo., to help pay for her medicines, which cost about $1,000 a month, Tom said. But after she purposefully overdosed on them in May, Robin was discharged and briefly hospitalized. She was later placed in the Regional Family Crisis Center in Perryville at the end of October.

Her mother last saw Robin Nov. 2. After a couple of weeks without contact, the Lenaus contacted the shelter.

But the staff couldn't release any information because of privacy laws, Tom said.

"They have a description of the car, but the shelter will not give us this information," he said.

Efforts to reach the center's director, Dawn Barton, for comment were unsuccessful.

The Lenaus filed a missing person report with the Perryville police but were told Robin was too old for an Amber Alert to be launched, Kathy said. And so the family has started a search of its own with fliers and phone calls.

Anyone with information can contact the Perryville Police Department at (573) 547-4546.

mwells@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160