A Clayton County mother missing since Saturday was at a homeless shelter all along, police said. She and her five children were found safe on Monday.
A Mattie’s Call alert was issued Sunday for 30-year-old Janee Dichier Ruffin-Cooper, who walked away from her Cypress Lane home at around 2:30 p.m. Saturday with her children in tow. She has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, manic depression, paranoia and bipolar disorder, said police, who feared she had the capacity to become violent without her medication, which she reportedly left at home.
About noon Monday, however, Ruffin-Cooper was located at a homeless shelter in Atlanta. She took a taxi and had been there the whole time she was “missing,” Clayton County police spokesman Officer Hal Weiner said.
Her children — ages 1, 4, 7, 8 and 9 — were unharmed.
“They all seem to be in good health and good spirits,” Weiner said.
Eugene Cooper, Ruffin-Cooper’s husband, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he was at his job in Morrow on Saturday when his wife left the home they share with his parents. She had a diaper bag and backpack but no clothes, money, car or phone.
There had been no arguments or confrontations before she left, Cooper said.
“This is the first time she’s done anything like this,” he said.
— Staff writer Tyler Estep contributed to this report.
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