Nearly three weeks after a Hilton Head woman vanished, the family waits and cries

Theresa Ortiz vanished from Burkes Beach on Hilton Head Island nearly three weeks ago, and her family continues to wait for answers.

“Every day is the same,” her husband, Carlos Ortiz, said. “It is too much sometimes. We can’t talk. We just cry.”

His wife, a North Carolina native who moved to Hilton Head in 2002, was reported missing July 1 by family after she didn’t return from a morning walk on Burkes Beach.

Her car was found in the beach parking lot the same day.

The following night, police got a tip that an empty pill bottle and flip flops belonging to the missing woman had been found near the high-tide mark the morning she went missing.

Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, family and volunteers continued to search for Ortiz Sunday.

“We try to think about something that will make us happy for a little while but the happiness turns to tears,” Ortiz said.

It was Theresa Ortiz who used to make the family laugh when they were down.

“She used to do crazy things to make us laugh like dancing like a chicken,” Ortiz said. “It is very hard not to have her around.”

Ortiz knows that if his wife went into the water, she is unlikely still alive.

He still wants to find her body.

“Who doesn’t want to find the body of the person they love?” Ortiz previously said.

Ortiz also has been critical of the Sheriff’s Office search efforts since his wife went missing, but officials have maintained the office is doing everything it can to locate her.

“We are still actively searching,” Sheriff’s Office Major Bob Bromage said Sunday.

That includes continued searches of the shoreline and water by boat and helicopter.

Bromage also said the circumstances around her disappearance continue to be investigated as a missing person.

Volunteers also have been helping the family, including family friends who rented a helicopter for a day to assist in the search.

We Are Their Voices, a Maryland search and rescue team, has been helping with the search for about a week.

Anyone able to assist with the search, specifically with a boat, should contact We Are Their Voices President Kenny Trowbridge at 1 240-416-6919.

This story was originally published July 19, 2020 at 3:04 PM.