Two women who left their home states to chase new opportunities in Colorado are missing, and family members are desperate for answers.
According to police, Melissa Whitsitt (pictured left), 34, disappeared on on August 13 after failing to arrive at her Winter Park resort job, where she worked as an assistant chef. Family members said she had relocated from Tennessee to Colorado in May, to expand her career choices.
An unknown male, according to police, used Melissa’s phone on August 13 and made calls to the Denver area. It’s unclear how the man knows Melissa or why he used her phone.
“There was no mention of any problems, any trouble,” Melissa’s father, Jerry Whitsitt, told Nancy Grace on Monday’s Crime Stories episode. “She mentioned a few people she had hung out with, or she would tell us, you know, ‘I went I went hiking with some friends’, or ‘I went shopping’ or things like that, but never we never heard anything it was troubled.”
“She would have made us aware of any kind of trouble she was facing.”
Meanwhile, police announced the same day of Melissa’s disappearance that Svetlana Ustimenko (pictured right), 55, of Florida, vanished a few weeks prior near Fraser, in the Deadhorse Trailhead area of Arapaho National Forest.
Police found her rental car, a 2022 white Nissan Sentra with Louisiana plates, at the Trailhead in late July. The car wasn’t schedule to be returned until August 10. Police said the car had been sitting in the trail area “for an extended period of time”
“In the case of Svetlana, we’re basically.. they’ve been looking off trail and it’s it’s been very rugged, overgrown terrain,” Director of Content for Colorado’s OutThere, Spencer McKee, told Grace.
“Authorities have said that they believe that she is not located in their primary search area. So generally whenever they’ll do a search like this, they they use a grid approach where they basically looked in a certain area and to move on to the next block and then the next block.
“And yeah, they believe that they’ve exhausted their efforts in the primary search area with fogs, drones, and beats on the ground both on and off trail too.”
According to the Grand County Sheriff’s Office, numerous search teams, including the Grand County Search and Rescue, Front Range Rescue Dogs, Rescue Dogs of the United States, Colorado Search and Rescue, searched the trail and surrounding areas for Svetlana.
Drones, cadaver dogs, and volunteers also joined the search efforts, to no avail. Police suspended the search on August 22, pending additional information that can lead them to her.
“If she had been on that trail, one of those dogs would have picked it up,” Grace said, referring to Svetlana.
Police said Svetlana was diagnosed with a terminal illness and “was struggling as she tried to cope and was attracted to the Colorado mountains,” according to a press release.
Anyone with information on Melissa’s whereabouts is urged to contact the Fraser Winter Park Police tip line at 970-722-7779 or Anyone with information regarding Svetlana should contact the Grand County Sheriff’s Office at 970-725-3311.
Listen to full episode below.
[Feature Photos via Grand County Sheriff]
