Missing Mom Found Dead in Car, 3 Kids Alive Next to Her

Texas woman's husband says he thought he had to wait 24 hours before calling police
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 1, 2016 9:30 AM CDT

A missing Texas woman described by her husband as a "model mom" and the rock of the family was found dead in a car in a Target parking lot in Frisco Thursday evening, her three young children alive beside her, CBS11 reports. Sources tell the station there were no explicit signs of trauma to the body of Christine Woo, 39, and her kids—5-year-old Lauren, 3-year-old Nathan, and 1-year-old Leah—were unharmed, though severely dehydrated, KDFW reports, via the Dallas Morning News. Woo and the children had been reported missing by her husband, Brandon, on Tuesday, after he hadn't seen or heard from them since Monday morning when he left for work. Christine was seen on a Walgreens surveillance video Monday morning, per WFAA; records also show she went to a local McDonald's a few hours later—the last purchase authorities have been able to track.

Brandon says he texted his wife on his way home from work Monday, but he wasn't alarmed when she didn't reply because he figured she was busy with the kids. When he got home and found the house empty, he tried calling her—and her cellphone rang in an adjoining room. He says everything in the house was intact. "Started getting worried when it got to 8 o'clock, now nothing. Nine o'clock, 10 o'clock, stayed up all night, of course," he tells NBC 5. He headed into work Tuesday morning to take care of some "obligations" before telling his boss his family was missing; he called the cops around 7pm Tuesday. Brandon says movies and TV had convinced him he had to wait 24 hours before filing a missing person's report—an assumption cops told him wasn't true. (A dad who disappeared from his daughter's California wedding was found dead.)

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