THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 13, 1995 TAG: 9507130415
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 122 lines
For all her family knew, Kathryne Albus might have been dead.
She never returned after leaving her Ocean View apartment one night last winter to go for a drive and to pick up a few groceries.
Her son, Brad Albus, and mother, Barbara Holmes, who shared the apartment with her, were devastated.
Kathryne Albus had vanished. The police declared her a missing person. Days turned into weeks and then months, but investigators had no clues.
Until now.
Last week, an $11,766.22 bill from a hospital in Dayton, Ohio, was forwarded to Barbara Holmes. It said that Kathryne, now 37, had been treated there from June 12 to 17.
``It was just shocking,'' said 16-year-old Brad Albus. ``I was just sitting there thinking about it . . . to just get a bill for $11,000, it's crazy.''
The hospital bill was the first sign that Kathryne Albus may be alive.
``Until that time,'' Holmes said, ``we knew nothing.''
They last saw Kathryne Albus on Feb. 13, when she was driving in her red 1985 Mitsubishi away from the apartment in the 9600 block of Chesapeake Blvd.
They went to bed and thought nothing was amiss. But the next day, Albus' co-workers from the Open House Diner in the Aragona section of Virginia Beach called the apartment, wondering why she had not shown up.
Her son and mother went to police and a private investigator for help. After their story was told in The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star last March, Brad Albus and his grandmother tried almost every avenue to track down Kathryne Albus.
Missing posters were placed throughout Hampton Roads. They appeared on ``The Maury Povich Show'' in early May with other guests and a psychic who discussed missing persons.
They have been questioning her disappearance since, not knowing whether she was abducted or if she walked out. Now, with this first clue, they've been bombarded with more questions.
They suspect that Kathryne Albus was hospitalized after a car accident. But Grandview Hospital and Medical Center in Dayton - where the bill originated - refuses to tell them, Holmes said. A Dayton police detective verified that she was treated there.
She apparently was brought into the emergency room on June 12 and was admitted the next day. She was released on June 17.
The bill indicates that Kathryne Albus was hooked up to a cardiac monitor. It also lists medications and various costs, but it does not state precisely why she was in the hospital.
A private investigator told Brad Albus and his grandmother that, during Kathryne Albus' hospital stay, a Dayton television station broadcast a plea for anyone who knew her.
But after Kathryne was released, she disappeared again.
``Now we're back to square one again,'' said Holmes, 62. ``We don't know where she is now.''
They have no friends or relatives in Dayton, Holmes said. The bill was made out to Kathryne Albus, sent to their former apartment on Chesapeake Boulevard and was forwarded to their new apartment.
Holmes said the only way the hospital could have obtained the address was from Kathryne, or from her driver's license.
However, a second bill - for $130 from Audiology and Speech Associates of Dayton, where she apparently was treated on June 14 - went directly to their new home.
How, Holmes asked, could they have received it directly at the new address unless the hospital - or Kathryne Albus - knew they had moved?
``I'm just grasping at straws,'' Holmes said. ``I don't feel like she is competent to make a decision to tell us where she is.''
Since February, they have been in touch with police and investigators for leads, at first jumping whenever the phone rang with a possible clue.
But gradually the search and anxiety died down. Sometimes they felt like giving up.
When they saw news reports of bodies that had been found in Hampton Roads over the last few months, fear would close in, followed by relief, as they found that each body was not Kathryne's. But the biggest challenge, Brad Albus said, was not knowing anything.
``It hasn't been terrible,'' he said. ``But you'd be talking with friends and someone talks about a mom and everyone gets quiet. They think, `Wait a minute, his mom left.' You can see it in their expressions.''
Brad Albus, who will be a Granby High School senior in the fall, had a 3.5 grade point average before his mother's disappearance. But for the second half of the year, his mind was not on school.
``My grades dropped a lot,'' he said, adding that he still expects to make the honor roll.
On Wednesday, he landed a summer job at the Senior Center in Ocean View. In the fall, he hopes to continue numerous school activities - honor society, Key Club, Latin club, debate team and Norstar, an aerospace science program. He also hopes to join Granby's new male volleyball team.
Holmes said she still suspects foul play was involved.
Albus said that his mother would not walk away like that - without extra clothes, money, or her books.
``I'd have to know why she did it to get mad at her,'' he said. ``I don't know what to think.''
When she left, Kathryne Albus left the family in dire straits. She was the breadwinner and paid the bills.
Donations from the community and from a fund drive organized through Granby High School totaled $4,000, enabling Brad Albus and his grandmother to pay rent and other bills for several months.
They - along with their cats, Sherlock and Watson - moved into a smaller apartment on Dudley Avenue in March.
Their next move, Holmes said, is to keep pushing the Dayton hospital and police department for more information. Their private investigator also is still working on the case.
``I'm just trying to go on,'' Holmes said, ``trying to take it one day at a time.'' ILLUSTRATION: ``TO JUST GET A BILL FOR $11,000, IT'S CRAZY''
[Color Photo]
MOTOYA NAKAMURA
Staff
Kathryne Albus of Norfolk disappeared on Feb. 13. Her son, Brad
Albus, and mother, Barbara Holmes, have their first lead.
The hospital won't say why it treated Kathryne Albus, but her mother
and son suspect that the missing Norfolk woman was in a car
accident.
KEYWORDS: MISSING PERSONS by CNB