Connie McCallister Missing Since 2004 at Age 16 From Wausau, WI Found Alive in Mexico

16 year old Connie McCallister went missing from Wausau, WI on August 15, 2004. McCallister went missing with her boyfriend, a then 22 year old man who is wanted on charges of first degree sexual assault involving an unrelated victim. Nine years later she has been found in Mexico. According to reports, Connie McCallister was able to get away from the boyfriend, who had drugged and repeatedly beaten her. It would appear that her next boyfriend was not much better and was the same type of person as the first. Officials with the U.S. Consulate are working with McCallister to gather the required documents and identification records necessary for McCallister and her children to return home.

A Wausau woman who was 16 when she disappeared more than nine years ago has been found living in Mexico.

Connie McCallister, now 25, disappeared with her then 22-year-old boyfriend on Aug. 15, 2004, when she was an honor-roll student at Athens High School, according to Daily Herald Media .

“I never gave up any hope of her,” said her aunt Florence Volzka, 56, of Medford, said Wednesday by phone. “I always thought she would find a way home. She is very close knit with the family.”

Volzka said she first spoke with her in September through Skype and she looks the same, but with longer hair.

“I cried for an hour,” she said.

She said McCallister told her the boyfriend drugged her in 2004 and took her to Mexico, where he was from. At one point, she was badly beaten and treated at a hospital, where someone helped her get a new identity, she said. Afterward, it was difficult for her to get word to family, because she didn’t know Spanish, she said.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children displayed McCallister’s name and photo on its website until three months ago.

That’s when a church missionary who met McCallister and learned she was a missing person contacted officials at the national organization and said McCallister, who now has three young children, was safe and wanted to come home.