SANTA CLARA, California. – Dozens of people gathered in Santa Clara on Wednesday to raise awareness for a 52-year-old woman who has been missing since Saturday morning. Her husband says she has recently been experiencing mental health issues and needs medication to survive.
Santa Clara police believe Renata Lopes is missing. About two dozen people gathered to search for her Wednesday night, and during the search, a neighbor said he saw her on his surveillance video.
“She goes for a walk almost every day to stay healthy. She goes for a walk for 15 minutes and then comes back. This time she went for a walk in the morning and disappeared,” said Karl Lopes, Renata’s husband.
Karl Lopes has been searching for his wife, 52-year-old Renata Lopes, for four days. He says she has had serious mental health problems over the past year and is taking medication that she needs to survive.
“That’s the biggest concern. She needs her medication for everything. She needs her medication to sleep. With the help of the psychiatrist and the therapist, she reduced her medication dosage, but as she was reducing the dosage, her condition worsened,” Lopes said.
While family and friends were handing out fliers on Main Street, where Renata was last seen, a neighbor told the group that he sees her walking around the neighborhood quite often. He then checked his surveillance video and found this image of Renata walking past his house at 11:27 a.m. Saturday morning.
Santa Clara City Council member Raj Chahal attended the search meeting and said he has been in contact with police. Chahal also hopes an official report will be issued about Renata’s disappearance. Lopes said police also used sniffer dogs near her home on Main Street, but to no avail.
“We need to activate the wider public here because someone saw her, right? Someone saw her leaving. Someone saw her somewhere,” said Gaurav Mishra, a family friend.
Lopes also says his wife speaks Polish and that she may speak that language if spoken to. Police have not yet had a chance to view the surveillance video discovered tonight, but say they are investigating.
If you have any information about this case, please contact the Santa Clara Police Department or call 415-528-0006.