Saturday will mark one year since Wanda Dyer left her Lawrence home and never returned. Volunteers are planning to search for her again this weekend.
Wanda, 74 at the time, is 5-foot-2 and 117 pounds. She was last seen carrying a black backpack and wearing a black coat with pink lining and blue, patterned pants.
Her husband of 46 years, Dave Dyer, said last year that she’d stayed in great shape and loved to walk, but her dementia had recently taken a turn for the worse.
“It’s just dreadful,” Dave said Wednesday. “After all this time, I’m real doubtful if I’m gonna see her again.”
Dave said he was recently half asleep when he thought he’d heard Wanda come in the door, calling out his name. He called for her, too. But he realized once he fully woke up that it was the upstairs neighbors’ voices he was hearing.
“It was a pretty rough morning,” he said.
Don’t miss a beat … Click here to sign up for our email newsletters
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
Equusearch Midwest will conduct a search this Saturday, March 21, the anniversary of the date Wanda was last with her family. Volunteers will meet at 7:30 a.m. and the search will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday.
Wanda was last photographed Friday, March 21, 2025 in Eudora, and that is where the search group will meet. The exact location should be decided hopefully later Wednesday, according to Twila Sisco, search and drone coordinator for Equusearch Midwest Search and Recovery Team. (This article will be updated with the specific meeting location whenever possible.)
The search team is looking for volunteers who can walk without a struggle for periods of time, Sisco said. No one younger than 18 will be allowed to participate in the search.
If you see Wanda Dyer, call 911 immediately.
Other info can be reported to dispatch:
785-843-0250.
She recommended people bring their own lunch or snacks and drinks, wear comfortable clothing that can get dirty, and wear shoes appropriate for hiking. She also said wearing bright yellow or orange shirts would be preferable.
Dave has been unable to search for Wanda himself for medical reasons. He said their daughter had hoped to take part in Saturday’s search, but coordinators didn’t want family members to participate “for obvious reasons.”
For updates, see the Facebook event page at this link and the “Bring Wanda home” Facebook group at this link.
The Lawrence Police Department launched a search and issued a silver alert for Wanda when she went missing last year, and Dave said at the time that he’d been impressed with how hard they’d been working to find her. Community members also coordinated multiple search efforts looking for her, and distributed flyers all over town and beyond.
The department has received fewer and fewer tips as time has passed, but officers follow up on each one, spokesperson Laura McCabe said.
“Unfortunately, we have no update,” McCabe said via email Wednesday. The most recent potential sighting reported to police was in January, she said.
“… It’s a sad story. I sure wish she would be found so we could give the family some answers,” McCabe said.
LPD had posted to Facebook about Wanda going missing once in February 2025, but that time she was found within a few hours, and the post was updated to reflect that. But McCabe said folks have recently been commenting on that older post, thus resurfacing it in people’s news feeds. That has led some people to believe she’s been found, but she has not. She said she’d like to discourage people from continuing to comment on the older post.
Sisco said people can reach out to her via Facebook if they have questions.
“We are grateful for the help of the community and please continue to share our flyer to keep her face and name out there,” Sisco said.
Dave asked again — as he has multiple times over the last year — that if anyone sees Wanda, please call 911 immediately. Don’t post to social media first.
See previous coverage in the articles linked below and on this page.
If local news matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
Don’t miss a beat — get the latest news from the Times delivered to your inbox:
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
