On the evening of February 11, 2026, the Benton County Sheriff’s office got a call from Herrington Place, a residential facility in Camden, Tennessee. Staff members couldn’t find Alma Fowler, a 75-year-old resident.
Sheriff Kenny Christopher has been working the case since they first got the call. “They called us to see if we could come help look for her,” Christopher told Dateline. “We get a call out there, I don’t know, periodically, three or four, maybe five times a year.” The sheriff said lost residents are usually found on or around the grounds of the facility in about 30 minutes.
According to Christopher, Alma was last seen eating lunch around 11:30 a.m. in the lunchroom. Afterwards, she went back to her room.
During room checks at some point in the afternoon, a staff member noticed Alma wasn’t in her room, “but the bathroom door was closed, so they figured she was just in the bathroom, and they didn’t knock on the bathroom door,” Christopher said.
At 5:30 p.m., staff members contacted the Benton County Sheriff’s Office. By then, it was already getting dark and cool outside, according to Christopher. Law enforcement searched for an hour to no avail. “We started calling in other agencies when we’d seen that it wasn’t going to be a quick find,” he said.
Alma has been living at Herrington Place for “about eight years,” according to the sheriff. It was not easy for her to get around. Alma suffered from a medical condition that required breathing treatments if she was out walking, and “she had some hearing deficiencies,” Christopher said, “but she refused to wear her hearing aids.” Alma also spoke with a strong Filipino accent. “She was kind of hard to understand,” Christopher said.
Alma’s purse, and all her clothing were still in her room. Staff also confirmed to authorities that all of her medications were located. “It’s not like, you know, she planned on going anywhere,” Christopher said. “Didn’t take anything with her.”
According to the sheriff, although Herrington Place has cameras inside and outside the facility, as well as a notification system that alerts the front desk if a resident exits their room, none of those security measures were turned on or operational at the time of Alma’s disappearance. Christopher told Dateline the staff said the cameras were turned off because residents became paranoid. “I can’t explain why they’re doing things the way they’re doing,” he said. “I assume they have their reasons, but I don’t understand it.”
Dateline reached out to Herrington Place for comment and was referred to the owner and operator of the facility, Carey Counseling Center, which has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Escalating the scale of the search, Sheriff Christopher called in local rescue squads. Benton County’s volunteer fire department, along with some volunteer deputies from surrounding counties reported to the scene. Tracking dogs were deployed first thing, “before everybody went to walking and messed up the trail,” Christopher said. But they didn’t recover any trace of Alma.
Drones and helicopters searched the area, and law enforcement set up a search grid to go on foot. “[We] covered, to my understanding, about 580 acres around the place,” Christopher said. “There wasn’t 10 foot in any direction that wasn’t walked over.” Sonar equipment and dive teams were deployed in the nearby ponds, but nothing was found.
On February 11, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation issued a Silver Alert for Alma. According to Christopher, by the end of their second day of searching, they had determined Alma was most likely not on the property. Law enforcement expanded their search. “She had to have been taken somewhere,” he said. “She wasn’t anywhere close.”
According to Christopher, staff members told law enforcement that Alma had expressed a desire to return to Mayfield, Kentucky, where she had lived previously. “So we went to Mayfield, Kentucky, spoke with authorities there,” he said. “They put out a Silver Alert, as well as the one we had in Tennessee.”
Alma, who had been divorced for about 20 years, had former family members in Mayfield. The sheriff interviewed Alma’s former spouse and former in-laws. “We spoke with a couple of former sister-in-laws of hers who were very concerned,” Christopher said. “They haven’t seen or heard nothing from her.”
Tammy Bruce, a sister of Alma’s ex-husband, hasn’t seen her former sister-in-law in 15 years. She learned that Alma was missing from a Facebook post. “I was shocked,” she told Dateline.
According to Tammy, her brother and Alma met in the Philippines while he was in the Navy, and Alma came to the United States along with her young son from a prior relationship. They were married for several years before divorcing. “She loved to cook her Filipino food, and she loved to crochet,” Tammy remembered. “She was a very kind person.”
Tammy initially stayed connected with Alma after the divorce. “I still helped her do a lot of stuff,” she said. “I would take her to doctor’s appointments. I would take her to get groceries, ‘cause she didn’t drive.” According to Tammy, Alma’s mental health deteriorated, and her son eventually moved her from Mayfield, Kentucky, to where he lived in Martin, Tennessee. “A couple times she ran away, and she would always come back to Mayfield to where her apartment was,” Tammy said. Alma’s son would bring her back to Tennessee each time, according to Tammy.
Tammy says she got a call about 15 years ago from Alma’s care team in Tennessee, including a psychiatrist and a social worker. She says the social worker asked if Tammy, who was a full-time nurse and mom, could take custody of Alma. “I could not at that time,” Tammy said. Instead, Alma was put in a Tennessee state institution. “So that was the last I’d even heard,” Tammy said. “At that point, you know, I’m not related to her.”
Alma’s son worked with one of Tammy’s brothers. According to Tammy, about six or seven years ago, her brother checked in with Alma’s son about her health. “And he told him she had died,” Tammy said. “So we all assumed she had passed.”
It wasn’t until the Facebook post about Alma being missing that Tammy realized she had been alive all these years. “If I’d have known she was at this Herrington Place in Camden, I would’ve went and visited her,” Tammy said. “I was just shocked to even know that she was alive.”
“We talked to the son,” Sheriff Christopher told Dateline. “He said he hadn’t spoke with his mother in four or five years.” According to the sheriff, the son said he didn’t know his mother was at Herrington Place.
Dateline reached out to Alma’s son for an interview, but has not received a response.
Christopher theorizes it’s possible that Alma asked someone for a ride. “Maybe they gave her a ride because they felt sorry for her because she’d been wanting to leave,” he said. And while he’s not ruling anything out, it’s hard to imagine a motive for foul play. “There’s no money to be had out of it that we know,” he said. “What would be the purpose?”
According to the sheriff, there are no suspects at this time, and no real leads to follow. “We’ve kept our tip line open on this, and we’ve had zero calls on it,” he said. “I’ve been at this 35 years, and this is the most frustrating case I’ve ever seen,” Christopher continued. “You got a woman that is not able to walk very far, and she disappears in the middle of the day with people all around her, and nobody knows or sees anything.”
Sheriff Christopher says the Benton County Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate the case and plans to conduct more interviews at Herrington Place.
“Seventy-five-year-old little ladies just don’t go missing,” former sister-in-law Tammy Bruce said. “I just want her to be safe. She’s too sweet for anything bad to have happened to her.”
Alma Fowler has gray hair and brown eyes. She is 4’11” and 110 lbs. She was last seen wearing a green puffy jacket, tan jeans, white snow boots, and a white headband.
Anyone with information about Alma is asked to contact the Benton County Sheriff’s Office at 731-441-3519 or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND.
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