LI Family Pleads With Public For Help In Locating Missing Mother
NEW YORK(CBSNewYork) -- A Long Island family is frantically trying to find a mother of two who vanished 11-days-ago.
On Wednesday, they joined police in a public plea to help solve a mystery in the Hamptons.
As CBS2's Carolyn Gusoff reported, in Bridgehampton, store windows display something unsettling, the smiling face of a mother who has gone missing.
While her community worried, the woman's family spoke out.
Lilia Esperanza Aucapina vanished on October 10.
"We don't know. We don't know what happened. She just vanished," Aucapina's niece Maria Duchi said.
The mother from Ecuador was raising two teenagers, and working as a house cleaner. She was last seen in a Wainscott Medical Center parking lot being confronted by her husband Carlos Aucapina.
She had recently gotten an order of protection against him.
Carlos admitted that he stopped Esperanza and a male friend and accused them of having an affair.
Police have asked the public for help.
"This is important. This is not only a sister, a daughter, this is a mother that is missing," Lt. Susan Ralph, Southampton Town Police said.
Carlos Aucapina's attorney said his client doesn't know what happened to her after the parking lot argument.
"There was no threat of violence, or violence in their marriage of 20 years," Colin Astarita said.
The 5'3" 130-lbs woman was last seen wearing a pony tail, blue jeans, brown boots, and a black coat.
She might have been seen later in the day that she disappeared walking west on Montauk Highway.
"Our family's in shock because she's a good woman. We never expected she would not come, and we have no explanation for it," Aucapina's brother Victor Parra said through a translator.
Family members and police hope she will see their pleas and come home, but they've sent teams into the woods looking for evidence of a worst case scenario.
The missing woman's husband was due in court on Thursday on charges of violating an order of protection.