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Facebook tip leads police to missing elderly women

Posted at 6:56 PM, Feb 21, 2014
and last updated 2014-02-24 14:01:20-05

GLEN ALLEN, Va. (WTVR) - A CBS 6 Facebook fan from Glen Allen helped authorities locate two missing women last seen in Dinwiddie County Thursday afternoon.

Anne Durrett told CBS 6 she was checking her Facebook Friday when she saw the post on the CBS 6 Facebook page.

"It just clicked. I had that moment of that's the women in the McDonald's!" said Durrett.

Durrett, from Glen Allen, said she and her family were traveling to Sandbridge to visit her father. On the way, they stopped at a Virginia Beach McDonald's where she believed they saw the women.

"I thought, it couldn't be them, but it looked like them. I was in there for a long time and it just seemed that everything aligned," she said.

Lillian Snead Rickmond

Lillian Snead Rickmond

Officials said 87-year-old Mary Lee Lambert and 79-year-old Lillian Snead Rickmond have not been seen since leaving a family member's Dinwiddie home in the 7400 block of Vaughan Road around 2 p.m.

The two women were supposed to be driving back to their Scottsburg homes in Halifax County, but had not been seen or heard from since they set off.

"Because of your post about the two missing senior women, I called Halifax County about two women I came across at a McDonald's in Virginia Beach," Anne Durrett wrote.

Mary Lee Lamber

Mary Lee Lamber

Virginia Beach police responded and officers spotted Lambert's gold Chevrolet Impala headed the wrong way down a one-way street.

Officials said the women were disoriented, but otherwise OK, according to Dinwiddie sheriff investigators.

Major William Knott with the Dinwiddie County Sheriff's Office confirms to CBS 6 that it was Durrett's phone call that helped police locate the women.

Durett said it's not a lesson for everyone that no tip is too small.

"If you have that gut feeling or that tug, just call," said Durrett.

Family members had described both women as having signs of early-onset dementia.