On Wednesday, police found the silver Honda Insight owned by missing Cal Poly Pomona student Elizabeth Duer. The 27-year-old landscape architecture student vanished on the evening of September 7 from her home in Baldwin Park, CA, after telling a roommate that she was running an errand.

Duer's vehicle was found in the parking lot of a bank in Hacienda Heights. Police say they found no evidence of foul play. According to the Whittier (CA) Daily News, Duer deposited $600 in the bank on the night she disappeared. When her car was found it was coated with a layer of dust and looked as though it had been in the lot for some time -- perhaps since the night of Duer's disappearance.

A peculiar and potentially chilling wrinkle to this case is the fact that Duer told others that she feared she was being stalked. She reported a stalker to police in Baldwin Park as well as the Cal Poly Pomona PD. She didn't give a description of the stalker, she just said she thought she was being followed.

Police in Baldwin Park admit that they don't have that many leads in this case.

Here's what we do know, thanks in part to a long article published by the Whittier newspaper:

* Elizabeth may have had a dispute with a roommate in February this year, but police doubt that confrontation is related to the alleged stalking. The roommate allegedly entered Elizabeth's room without permission. This prompted Elizabeth's landlord to ask him to move. The roommate said he would go back to Taiwan. Police didn't confirm whether or not he actually did so.

* No phone calls have been made from Elizabeth's cell since Sept. 7. There has been no bank activity since she deposited money that same night.

* Elizabeth Duer's landlord, Betty Tsao, received a strange phone call the night Elizabeth vanished, but earlier reports about that call may have been confusing in part because according to the Daily News, Ms. Tsao "is not a native English speaker."

* Elizabeth kept a "strict schedule," most of the time.

* The day she dropped out of sight, Elizabeth baked cakes for herself and her roommates. There was no reason, such as a birthday; she just tended to do things like that for others.

* As Elizabeth left on the 7th, she told a roommate to relay to Ms. Tsao that she'd be back later that night. Ms. Tsao said that this was unusual; Elizabeth "didn't usually say" such things.

* During a press conference given Thursday, Baldwin Park police Captain Mike Taylor said everyone associated with the missing woman has been very cooperative -- including her boyfriend.

It's hard to figure out what may have happened here. If viewed from a slight remove, that makes this young woman's disappearance unusually intriguing.

On the one hand, people have faked being stalked in the past. Usually this is due to some form of mental illness. And that kind of mental illness could lead to self-destructive, even suicidal behaviors.

In this case, there's no sign yet that Elizabeth Duer had any traits that might have made others suspect she was shamming about being stalked. Another tell-tale sign that she may have truly thought she was somehow being targeted: good luck trying to find any trace of the woman online. I can't say that she didn't have any personal profiles, because I'm not always able to find such things -- but I'm usually pretty good at it, and so far, I've found no trace of Elizabeth Duer on Facebook, MySpace, or any other, similar (but less popular) site. She seems to have either had no use for the Web or she made a conscious effort to keep traces of herself offline.

Elizabeth's family is truly worried. Yesterday I contacted one of her cousins, the owner of a weblog titled Scattered Marbles. She's posted a number of articles on her blog about Elizabeth's disappearance, and she told me that Brent Weaver, a cousin who has spoken to the press quite a bit, will be responding to me sometime today. If he does, I'll post another entry.

In the meantime -- Elizabeth Duer is 5'8" and 120 lbs. She's a hazel-eyed brunette. If you've seen her or have information that may help bring her home again, get in touch with Baldwin Park Detective Mark Harvey at (626) 960-1955, extension #421.

[Whittier Daily News]