After Cryptic Call Home, the woman from Wyoming is no longer “missing,” but the mystery remains

Azia Diane Saldana is still missing and her family has not seen her in months. However, the Wyoming woman is no longer considered a missing person after she made a cryptic call to her mother this week.

The 33-year-old mother of four left her parents’ Torrington home early in the evening on August 26 to play slot machines at the Western Travel Terminal rest stop. That was the last time anyone from her family saw her.

Aside from a few erroneous text messages that could not be verified, there had been no contact with Azia for more than two months since her disappearance.

The calling

On Monday afternoon, Azia’s mother Lisa said she received a call from an unknown number. She thought it was a spam call until she heard her daughter’s voice for the first time since she disappeared in August.

“It was a very short phone call, almost like it was arranged,” said Stacy Koester, a volunteer private investigator with Road Warriors for the Missing. “She said, ‘I don’t know where I am or how I got here,’ but that she was fine.”

The call only lasted seven minutes. Koester said Azia has not disclosed her whereabouts but said she believes she may be in Tucson, Arizona. Several male voices could be heard in the background of the call, but Azia did not say who she was with.

“She kept saying, ‘I want to go home,’ and then (the conversation) ended,” Koester told Cowboy State Daily.

Koester was the first person to call Lisa Saldana when the phone call with her daughter ended abruptly. After learning the details, Koester contacted the Torrington Police Department.

The follow-up

Torrington police confirmed that Azia Saldana contacted her family on Monday. Soon after, members of the investigative team were also able to exchange text messages using the same phone number used to call Lisa Saldana.

“We believed we were communicating with Azia,” Torrington Police Chief Matt Johnson told Cowboy State Daily.

Johnson said Azia did not reveal where she was or who she was in any of their exchanges. But there was one point about which she was very clear.

“She made a very clear statement that she did not want to be listed as ‘missing,’ and her status as a missing person was not beneficial to her,” he said. “She also made it clear to us that she did not need any help at this time.”

As a result of these requests, Azia Saldana is no longer considered a missing person by the Torrington Police Department. There is cause for concern about their unaudited status, but Johnson said they are conducting due diligence based on messages received.

“We are working to maintain a balance between managing potential risks to (Azia’s) safety, fulfilling her wishes and respecting her right to privacy as an adult,” he said.

Risk indicators

No one involved in the search for Azia disputes the authenticity of the Monday call she made to her mother, but the circumstances of the situation are unacceptable to anyone.

It is still unknown how and why Azia disappeared. Was she kidnapped or forced somewhere against her will, or did she disappear on her own and call on Monday to prevent anyone from looking for her?

“Lisa knows her daughter’s voice,” Koester said. “But if you look at it from a dangerous perspective? She has all these headlines. How easy would it be to force her to call home, tell her she’s safe, and make sure all documentation is removed? She can no longer be found on websites and they can move freely without her face being known as a missing person.”

The “they” Koester was referring to are human traffickers. Lisa Saldana believes Azia may have been kidnapped by sex traffickers, especially given the many male voices she heard in the background of the brief phone conversation with her daughter.

Furthermore, the number from which Azia called was a spoofed number designed to disguise the real number of the calling phone. It would be possible to ping the number to determine Azia’s location, but that would be much more difficult.

The correct classification

Koester is concerned that saying Azia is no longer missing will hinder efforts to find her safely and bring her home to her family. She doesn’t believe the Torrington Police Department had enough confirmation to remove her from the missing persons list.

“No one in this police department has spoken to Azia, heard her voice or seen her face,” she said. “I don’t understand how they can say she’s not missing based on a text message from a TextNow number.”

Johnson said the Torrington Police Department may have changed the nature of its investigation into Azia’s disappearance, but there is still an ongoing investigation and they are committed to bringing her home to her family.

“We still have concerns for their welfare,” he said. “These statements are a potential indicator of risk, but we do not know what that means or how much risk they pose. We know we don’t want to make things worse for Azia.”

The investigation is moving from a public information campaign to a more “focused” effort to find out where Azia is and whether she needs help, he said. If she is in danger or needs assistance, this information will be passed on to law enforcement agencies near her location.