A West Virginia mother has been missing for nearly a week as friends and family grow increasingly concerned about her well-being.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, a family member reported Mary Cathleen Haley missing from Raleigh County on December 16, and she has not been seen or heard from since Friday or before.
On Friday, Haley reportedly sent a Facebook message to a friend, claiming that her estranged husband William Scott, a retired member of the West Virginia State Police, had beaten her and left her with black eyes the week prior. Bruises were visible in two photos she shared in that message exchange, before friends who spoke to Fox News said that the tone and content of the messages from the account changed dramatically. In one of those later messages, the person writing from Haley’s account indicated that she may be in Rural Retreat Lake in Wythe County, Virginia.
The series of rambling messages included the claims “she fell in the lake” and “she tried to kill herself.”
CrimeOnline also saw screenshots of additional Facebook message exchanges between Haley’s Facebook account and people believed to be friends of hers. Those screenshots were shared in Facebook posts discussing Haley’s disappearance. In one exchange, the person communicating with Haley’s account appeared to accuse William Scott of taking over Haley’s account. The person sending messages from Haley’s account responded to that accusation with messages that read, “Find her body then buddy” and “she might be dead.”
A friend of Haley’s shared a screenshot with CrimeOnline of Haley’s Facebook page showing a post that read “I’m a wh**e,” dated just after 6 p.m. on Saturday. The person who sent the screenshot said she did not believe Haley posted that message herself.
Jeff Pike, a private investigator who operates Complete Surveillance and Investigative Services in Wytheville, Virginia, told CrimeOnline that he had heard from Haley several months ago, when she called him for a consultation. During that phone conversation, Haley said she worried her husband was tracking her car and her phone, and indicated she was scared of him, Pike said. Pike recommended that she contact a lawyer, but it is not known if she did, and Pike did not have any further communication with her.
Multiple sources said that Haley, who has at least one daughter and appears to have moved around between different counties in Virginia and West Virginia in recent years, had indicated she was fearful of her husband and had tried to get a divorce, but he would not sign the papers.
“He would beat the sh**out of her,” said Alesha Buck, a distant cousin of Haley’s who worked at her retail store in Marion, Virginia, last year before Haley closed it.
“I’ve seen bruises.”
CrimeOnline attempted to reach the Raleigh County Sheriff’s Office about information we have received about the case. On Thursday, a woman who identified herself as Raleigh County Sheriff Scott Van Meter’s administrative assistant said that Van Meter was out of town and unreachable. Minutes later, a woman who answered the sheriff office’s tip line said that Van Meter was in a meeting and that he would return the call, which he had not as of late Thursday afternoon.
Sheriff Scott Van Meter told local news station WOAY on Wednesday that Haley was wanted by authorities in Smyth County, Virginia, on charges of grand larceny. According to the WOAY report, Haley was indicted on December 10, one day after Haley reportedly requested a protective order and a private warrant, accusing Scott of domestic assault in Wythe County.
According to court documents obtained by the Wytheville Enterprise, Haley said in a criminal complaint that she had pulled over her car on December 3 to take a phone call when she was “pulled out of the car by my husband and another man and punched in my face and chocked [sic].”
“I was punched over and over in the face and told next time it will be a bullet to my head.”
Scott reportedly turned himself in on December 11 and was “released on a personal recognizance bond,” according to documents obtained by the news station. He is due back in court in early January.
Van Meter told Fox News that Scott has been “100 percent cooperative from the beginning” of the missing persons investigation.
The Smyth County Sheriff’s Office in Marion, Virginia, did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the grand larceny warrant. According to the Wytheville Enterprise, Haley had not been served on the grand larceny indictment, meaning that public records of the charges would not be available. A search of online court records in Smyth County found only records showing that Haley was charged with two traffic violations in 2019, and paid fines on both violations.
On Thursday, Wythe County Sheriff’s Maj. Anthony Cline told the Wytheville Enterprise that investigators had searched the area around Rural Retreat Lake, following up on a tip about the mention of the lake in Facebook messages.
“Through our investigation, we don’t believe at this time that [Haley] is in Rural Retreat,” Cline said.
Anyone with information about Haley’s whereabouts is urged to call the Raleigh County Sheriff’s Office at 304-255-9300 or the Wythe County Sheriff’s Office at 276-223-6001.
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