KALAMAZOO, MI – Police in Indiana used a bloodhound Thursday and an all-terrain vehicle Friday in their search for a missing medical resident from Kalamazoo whose Lexus was found abandoned last week on I-94 near Portage, Ind.

They also are making plans to do an aerial search for Teleka Patrick, 30, said First Sgt. Al Williamson of the Indiana State Police.

“We’re doing all we can to determine what happened to her,” Williamson said. “… She’s pretty much just vanished. All we know is we have her car and we have nobody to go with the car.”

Patrick hasn't been seen since the evening of Dec. 5 when she was dropped off at her car – a gold 1997 Lexus ES300 – in the parking lot of Borgess Medical Center on Gull Road, according to the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office. Undersheriff Pali Matyas has declined to disclose what time Patrick was dropped off.

Just after 10:20 CST that night, her car was found in a ditch off westbound I-94 near Portage, Ind., by an state police trooper who responded just before 10:15 p.m. to a report of an unknown accident.

Williamson said an immediate search of the area that night turned up nothing and people the trooper and firefighters talked to at local truck stops and other establishments near the I-94 exit for Porter/Burns Harbor did not report seeing Patrick.

Patrick was reported missing Friday to sheriff’s investigators in Kalamazoo after she failed to show for work.

Patrick, who is originally from Queens, N.Y., graduated from Loma Linda University School of Medicine in California earlier this year and came to Kalamazoo in July to begin the first of four years as a medical resident in psychiatry with the WMU School of Medicine.

Since Dec. 5, Williamson said his agency has combed a one-mile radius near the highway four times looking for Patrick, but so far have turned up nothing. He said investigators were using an all-terrain vehicle Friday to search for Patrick in areas covered with heavy brush.

On Thursday, he said the agency used a bloodhound to try to retrace Patrick’s steps from where her car was found. The sergeant declined to say what, if anything, the search by the bloodhound revealed.

He said Friday that police have a plan in the works to search the area off I-94 with a helicopter from the state police, the National Guard or the local sheriff’s office in Lake County, Ind., depending on availability.

In Kalamazoo County, Undersheriff Pali Matyas said investigators still had no new leads in Patrick’s disappearance, as of Friday afternoon.

Matyas said earlier this week that sheriff’s detectives were not able secure security camera footage from Borgess’ parking lot because the hospital’s system was not working properly.

“We’ve done quite a bit on this and we just don’t know where she is,” said Matyas, who declined to elaborate on what investigative measures police have used so far to try to locate Patrick.

As the search for Patrick continues, her parents, Mattahais and Irene, say they have been on an emotional rollercoaster since Dec. 6 when their daughter was reported missing.

Irene Patrick said she and her daughter usually talk by phone every Sunday. She said the last time they spoke was Nov. 28 when Patrick called as she was driving back to Kalamazoo from a cousin’s house in Chicago where she spent Thanksgiving.

“My dear, this is a nightmare,” Irene Patrick said. “It’s just a nightmare … Sometimes we have a hope and other times I just don’t have another hope.

“So, we are really on an emotional slide right now.”

The Patricks, who reside in Florida, traveled to Kalamazoo earlier in the week to comb the area for their daughter. Irene Patrick said the family also wants to search in Indiana where Taleka Patrick’s car was found and are hopeful that residents from the area might help.

Irene Patrick said she and other family members know of no reason that Taleka Patrick would have been on westbound I-94 in Indiana Thursday night and that doing so would have been out of character for her.

“… The fact that she was in that direction, it seems like her life was in danger,” Irene Patrick said. “Why would she travel in that direction Thursday night knowing that she had to be back to work on Friday? It seems it’s a matter of flight and fright

“I’m trying to put the pieces together. Only God knows.”

Patrick's disappearance has spawned heavy traffic on Facebook and Twitter, as well as the hashtag #findTeleka. There's also an online fundraiser to help with efforts to find Patrick, as well as a YouTube video that was posted Thursday.

As of Friday afternoon, the YouTube video had more than 600 views.

Investigators, so far, have said they don’t suspect foul play in Patrick’s disappearance. Williamson said earlier this week that police found nothing suspicious in her car the night of Dec. 5.

Irene Patrick questioned Friday why police don’t suspect foul play in her daughter’s disappearance given the amount of time that has passed since she was last seen. She said she worries that information from police will make some complacent to efforts to find Teleka Patrick.

Williamson said, however, that police are investigating Patrick’s disappearance the same way they would if foul play was suspected and suggested not getting “hung up on the title” of the case.

“We’re investigating a missing woman who has no reason to be missing,” Williamson said. “… We are exhausting everything we can exhaust. We have not stopped.”

State police in Indiana began assisting sheriff’s investigators in Kalamazoo on Tuesday when sheriff’s officials did a search on Patrick’s vehicle and found that it had been impounded in Indiana.

Police found some of Patrick’s personal belongings in the Lexus, but not Patrick’s purse. Williamson declined to comment on whether Patrick’s keys were found in the car.

Williamson said on Friday that detectives are working to obtain a copy of the call to dispatchers on Thursday night that prompted the trooper’s response to I-94. Investigators are hopeful that the call will reveal whether the person who reported seeing Patrick’s car actually saw it drive off the highway or spotted it after it had already run off the road.

For now, Irene Patrick said she and her family are doing their best to hold out hope that Teleka, who is the oldest of the couple’s three children, will be found alive and safe.

“It’s up and down,” Irene Patrick said. “You feel happy and optimistic one moment and another time … you fear the worst. We are trying very hard to keep our hopes alive because we want our daughter home alive.”

Rex Hall Jr. is a public safety reporter for the Kalamazoo Gazette. You can reach him at rhall2@mlive.com. Follow him on Twitter.

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