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Family, Friends Plan Search For New Port Richey Mom

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By LISA A. DAVIS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 16, 2007

Updated: 11/16/2007 02:20 pm

NEW PORT RICHEY - Family and friends of a young mother who disappeared Nov. 5 from her Colony Lakes Estates home have organized a search for her that will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday.

Stefanie Francique

Stefanie Francique, 24, vanished that evening from the home she shared with her father and stepmother, leaving behind her 4-year-old daughter and few clues.

Janet Mears, her stepmother, last saw her that night when she went to bed. As was Francique's usual routine, she was spending the evening outside using her cellular telephone and enjoying cigarettes because smoking wasn't allowed inside the home.

When Mears awoke the next morning, Francique's car was still in the driveway, her purse, makeup and other personal items she usually would take with her were in the home, but she was gone.

Nobody has reported seeing or talking to her since. Family and friends say she wouldn't just walk away, especially from her daughter, Alyanna, whom was described as her mother's little shadow.

"Stefanie does not abandon her daughter," her father, Ardell Mears, 60, said Tuesday. "I think she's met some foul play."

The Pasco County Sheriff's Office is investigating, but detectives haven't found any evidence of a crime.

Deputies searched the family's home, at 11910 Old Tuscany Place, on Nov. 6 as well as the community's clubhouse, pool area and the woods around the house.

Anyone interested in joining Saturday's search can meet at a home in the Colony Lakes Estates at 12033 Infinity Drive, off Colony Lakes Boulevard. For information, call Tammy Richardson, the organizer, at (727) 514-1561.

The sheriff's office has not had any tips about Francique's whereabouts.

She is 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighs 200 pounds and has long wavy blond hair and blue eyes. She has a white tiger tattoo on her upper right arm.

Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Kevin Macomber at 1-800-854-2862, Ext. 7462.

Reporter Lisa A. Davis can be reached at (727) 815-1083 or ldavis@tampatrib.com.

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