Posted Wednesday, April 24, 2019 3:00 am

A Port Townsend woman has been missing since April 17, and the Port Townsend Police Department’s investigation remains ongoing.

Kimberly McHone is 54 years-old, stands 5 feet, 10 inches tall, lives in the North Beach area, and her last known location was Uptown Port Townsend, on Roosevelt Street, at 11 a.m. while walking toward Fort Worden.

Keppi Keplinger, public information officer for the Port Townsend Police Department, had no further details to release as of press time, but urged anyone who might have seen McHone, or who might have any information regarding her whereabouts, to contact the PTPD at 360-385-2322 or 911.

John Greenland, a friend of McHone’s mother who is acting as the family’s spokesman, told the press the mother received a set of text messages after she last saw her daughter, the first requesting she send money to a credit card number, and a subsequent message apparently about a meeting.

“The text messages were really odd,” Greenland said. “We’ve been talking with the police throughout, and they said they didn’t think those messages came from Kimberly. They didn’t have her voice or style of writing. Kim has worked in newspapers and advertising, so she knows how to write. These messages were misspelled, with no spaces or punctuation.”

Greenland credited police with tracking McHone’s cell phone to Indio, California, where it began pinging cell phone towers roughly 30 hours after McHone was last seen.

“I don’t know how she might have gotten there, with the money that she has,” Greenland said. “But she did live in that area for a short amount of time, and she has family in that area.”

While Greenland found some reassurance in the pinging of McHone’s cell phone, he noted she still hasn’t answered her phone, nor has she been found yet.

“We’re really concerned, in case she’s disoriented, hurt or worse,” Greenland said.

While Greenland was effusive in his praise for the Port Townsend Police Department, particularly Sgt. Jason Greenspane, he’d nonetheless started a GoFundMe page, “Find My Daughter,” to raise $35,000 to hire a private investigator.

“If we have money left over, we’ll put that toward a reward,” Greenland said. “If she’s found in the meantime, we’ll give everyone’s money back. We just want to find her, and we know speed is important.”