A missing woman in Colchester has been found. Police spent all morning trying to find her in a Malletts Bay neighborhood but that's not where they found her.

The good news is she has been located, but what has police curious is where she was found-- over two dozen miles away from her home.

"Eleven o'clock last night is when she was last seen. When her parents got up this morning, they found her missing," Colchester Police Lt. Doug Allen said.

Colchester Police spent all morning searching for Vanessa Whitaker, 30.

"This person has some cognitive impairment, therefore we certainly take it very serious and important to find this person," Allen said.

Authorities say Whitaker's family found her bedroom window open but there was no sign of her inside their Hawthorne Lane home.

Search and rescue teams, and police officers from surrounding towns responded to help look for her, searching backyards, sheds, and inside and under cars in the neighborhood. K-9 teams tried to track a scent, while a Customs and Border Protection helicopter checked the nearby lake.

"She has been a missing person in the past," Allen said.

Whitaker's mother didn't want to speak to us on camera but says her daughter is mentally challenged and has never disappeared for this long before. But her concern and fears were lifted when police delivered the positive news in the early afternoon.

"She has been located up in Franklin County," Allen said.

However, even with the good ending, police said they still have more questions.

"We'll be working to find out how she got there and the circumstances around that," Allen said.

Whitaker was found in St. Albans around 1 p.m. Police planned to interview her once she was reunited with her family about what happened.

Her mother told WCAX News that Whitaker is doing OK. Her mother says she decided to walk to St. Albans to her mother's ex-husband's home.