“Part of the reason that I’m trying so hard -- other than of course, she’s family -- to find her, is that my father passed away a few years ago and that was his last living sibling,” Cassandra Mullican said. “I know my dad would be cutting down trees to find her, that’s who he was.”
Cassandra’s aunt, 66-year-old Yvonne Mullican, has been missing for weeks. Cassandra feels like she needs to help as much as she can, because it’s what her dad would have done if he were here. “I definitely have to try and at least get it out there so people can see and get as much exposure as possible for him and for her,” she said.
Yvonne, who had her two dogs with her when she disappeared, was officially reported missing on April 4, 2024.
Dateline spoke with Lieutenant Jason Kaufman of the Prescott Valley Police Department, who oversees the Support Services Division and the Public Information Office for the department.
He confirmed that Yvonne was reported missing by one of her daughters who lives in another state. “Last time she talked to her mother was Tuesday, April 2, 2024, on the phone,” he said.
Lieutenant Kaufman said that authorities attempted to contact Yvonne but were unable to track her down. They entered her information into NCIC, the National Crime Information Center — which is an “index of missing persons and criminal information.” The lieutenant said they also put out a BOLO for her car, a 2012 Kia Sorrento.
“Her car was found three weeks later,” niece Cassandra said. “It’s silver and on the back of it has a bumper sticker that says, ‘God be with you.’”
Cassandra described her aunt as sweet, but also as someone who keeps to herself. “My aunt’s always been an animal lover, so I couldn’t see her doing anything that would put her animals in a weird position,” she said. “When I was a kid, she had boa constrictors that she treated like house cats, you know what I mean? She’s very much an animal person, so it’s just weird that her dogs are with her — if she did try to disappear — that would be a very strange thing for her to do.”
Cassandra said Yvonne is from Prescott Valley, Arizona, which is more than 50 miles from where her car was located. According to a missing person poster that the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office posted on Facebook, Yvonne’s vehicle was located “at State Route 260 (milepost 249) and Forest Road 144” and "may have been there for approximately 3 weeks before it was reported."
Cassandra said the car was found “dead center” between the small town of Camp Verde and the communities of Strawberry and Pine. “There’s nothing else to really, um, identify the area very well,” she said.
Lieutenant Kaufman told Dateline that the Prescott Valley Police Department was notified by the Arizona Department of Public Safety about Yvonne’s car being located on May 1, 2024. “It had a note [on it], uh, that she had called for roadside services,” he said. “But she wasn’t, um, in the vehicle and [on the note] asked the vehicle be towed to Chapman Auto Services in Payson.”
“The detective with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, uh, advised us that troopers would remain with the vehicle, uh, and treat it as if it was a crime scene,” Lt. Kaufman added.
“We all kind of find it odd that her car was there,” niece Cassandra said. She told Dateline that her family is familiar with the area, as they used to go there when she was younger.
“My dad used to take us all out there, and we would explore and learn how to survive in the wilderness and stuff like that,” she said. “My family in particular knows that area like the back of our hands. So it’d be very weird that she would just, like, I don’t know, just go out there and just not come back.”
Cassandra described the area where Yvonne’s car was found as desolate. “There’s not any commercial buildings right there,” she said. “It’s a very wooded area. So it’s really green, a lot of trees. There’s a lot of cliffs and steep hills and things like that in the area. So it’s not a very -- it’s not a walked area.”
Lieutenant Kaufman said that the Prescott Valley Police Department has not handled the searches near where Yvonne’s car was found, because it is in the jurisdiction of the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office. “The sergeant for Coconino County said he would be working to get a -- a team together, specifically with -- with a dog, um, and bring -- and have the dog brought to the location where the vehicle was found,” he said.
“On May 2, 2024, the Coconino County Sheriff’s went out to the location where the car was located, uh, and attempted to identify a potential crime scene or look for any evidence or look for a person or look for a corpse,” Lt. Kaufman said. “It doesn’t look like they found anything.”
“My cousins had gone out and posted missing signs,” Cassandra said. “They have started, kind of, posting them all over the little surrounding areas there.” Cassandra described the searches for her aunt. “At first, it was just kind of a foot search,” she said. “People walking around and looking around and trying to find her and calling out her name, that kind of thing.”
“The only thing they’d found is her dog leashes, a little ways away from the car in the woods,” Cassandra said. The dogs were nowhere to be found.
They wrapped up another search this past Friday, which turned up nothing new.
Cassandra told Dateline that there has been no activity on her aunt’s accounts. “There’s no money in, no money out. Her phone is shut off, all of her social media accounts are gone,” she said. According to Cassandra, Yvonne’s social security checks are still sitting in her P.O. box. “It’s literally, like, just up and poof -- gone.”
Lieutenant Kaufman told Dateline the Prescott Valley Police Department received information from the family that Yvonne “had cancelled [her] phone service and shut off her email,” as well.
“She was reported to be of sound mind, a grown adult, um, she had a valid driver’s license,” Kaufman said. “And in America, we’re free to go where we want. And if we don’t want people to find us, for our own reasons, um, sometimes people just disappear.”
Cassandra, who lives a couple of hours away from her aunt, told Dateline she is doing anything she can think of to help from afar. “I personally called every mental health facility over there, every hospital, every hotel, every, like, every campground, everything I can get in touch with, and nobody has heard anything or seen anybody that even looks like her,” she said.
Yvonne is about 5’4” or 5’5” and weighs 160-180 lbs. She has shoulder-length brown hair and green eyes. She does not have any distinguishing marks or tattoos.
She was last believed to have been wearing dark jeans, a purple shirt, and a gray sweater.
“I figured that’s probably the best thing I can do from my home, um, is at least get her face out there,” Cassandra told Dateline. “I’m just hoping that she’s out there, she’s OK, and that she sees that we’re actively looking for her and something in her says, ‘You know what? I need to talk to my family, I’m not alone.’”
If you have any information about the disappearance of Yvonne Mullican, please contact the Prescott Valley Police Department at 928-772-9267 or Yavapai Silent Witness at 1-800-932-3232.