
DATE: Friday, October 3, 1997               TAG: 9710030690

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   96 lines

``LIVING NIGHTMARE'' HER CAR WAS FOUND IN FLORIDA, BUT THERE'S NO TRACE OF NORFOLK WOMAN.

Candace Arnaud had just lost her job at a local architectural firm, but it didn't seem to faze her.

Her backup career selling Mary Kay cosmetics was taking off, and now, her husband said, she was going to be able to spend more time with their two young daughters.

``She was in such good spirits, probably the happiest she had been in some time,'' Chris Arnaud said about the weeks before his wife disappeared. ``It was like a whole new life had started for her.''

So what, her family asks, has happened to her?

Candace ``Candy'' Arnaud, 38, was last seen leaving a friend's residence in the 600 block of Ingleside Road about 11 p.m. on Sept. 17. Police said she and Jack Autery were en route to Arnaud's home when they disappeared. Her car also was missing.

Police and FBI officials launched a search. Family and friends plastered the area with ``missing'' posters. But no one heard anything.

However, the case took a sinister turn this week in Titusville, Fla., near Orlando. Autery, 42, was arrested without incident Tuesday afternoon in a motel room after FBI agents found Arnaud's missing 1989 metallic gold Ford Taurus there.

Arnaud, however, remains missing.

Autery has been held in jail without bond in Titusville and will be extradited to Virginia, said FBI spokeswoman Patty Schlosser.

FBI officials said they do not know what has happened to Arnaud, whom they have listed as ``missing under suspicious circumstances.''

For her family, the agony of waiting continues. They have difficulty sleeping. When the phone rings, they wonder if she will be on the other end.

``It's been an absolute living nightmare for the last two weeks,'' Chris Arnaud, 32, said Thursday in an interview from their home in the 500 block of Maycox Ave.

Arnaud, a chief petty officer on the cruiser Thomas S. Gates, was on a six-month deployment in the Mediterranean when he was notified of his wife's disappearance. He was flown back to Virginia, where he has waited with his wife's mother and sisters, who flew in from Long Beach, Calif.

``I don't know how we're getting through. It's like we're hanging by our fingernails,'' he said. ``Candy is the most important thing in my life.''

At first, he said, discovering the car and Autery offered some hope.

``We were on a high, elated,'' he said. But when they couldn't get answers to what happened to his wife, the family ``hit rock bottom again.''

Never would his wife leave her daughters, Rose, 7, and Chelsea, 9, Chris Arnaud said.

``Her children are her entire world,'' he said. ``She would never do anything to jeopardize their safety.''

Chris and Candace Arnaud met in Long Beach when his ship was in port there and married 1 1/2 years later. Their 10-year anniversary will be in March. They have lived in Hampton Roads nearly five years.

He describes his wife as buoyant and vivacious.

``She can walk into a room full of strangers and walk out with a room full of best friends,'' he said. ``She's very trusting.''

But her family and friends seem to know little about Jack Lynn Autery.

Chris Arnaud said his wife had met Autery several times, but he had never met Autery.

Candace's mother, Jean Sweet, said her daughter met him through another friend, and Autery had offered to fix the broken air conditioning in her car.

Court records show that Autery lived in an apartment on Channing Avenue in Portsmouth, where he was charged in that city with rape, abduction and two counts of sodomy in a November 1996 incident.

A jury of 11 women and one man acquitted him in July, said Michael Massey, one of the prosecutors on the case.

Chesapeake court records also show rape and sodomy charges against Autery from December 1995. A jury found him not guilty this past June, and the charges were dismissed.

An FBI spokesman said he could not comment on what, if anything, Autery might have said about Arnaud's whereabouts. He has been charged with stealing her car.

``We are unhappy we don't have any answers,'' Candace Arnaud's older sister, Sharon Sweet, said. ``We thought (Autery) would be the link. Unfortunately, it's a missing link.''

Her family continues to have faith she will return, Chris Arnaud said. ``The next step is to pray and wait for her to come home.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot

Chris Arnaud, left, and Sharon Sweet, the husband and sister of

Candace ``Candy'' Arnaud, are still waiting for her to return home.

A man last seen with Candy Arnaud has been charged with car theft.

Graphic

Color photo< [of Candance "Candy" Arnaud]

Arnaud is described as a white female, 5 feet, 4 inches tall, 130

pounds, with hazel eyes and shoulder-length frosted brown hair. She

also has two tattoos: a cat's face on her chest and a lizard on her

lower back. Family members said she was last seen wearing a brown

paisley dress. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Line

at 664-4040 or the FBI. KEYWORDS: MISSING PERSON