Six months on from the disappearance of Rose Linn Care Center nurse Cristina Ase, the 62-year-old’s friends and coworkers are struggling without the person they consider a family member.
www.westlinntidings.com
Six months after Cristina Ase went missing, friends and coworkers are not giving up hope that she’ll return
Six months on from the disappearance of
Rose Linn Care Center nurse Cristina Ase, the 62-year-old’s friends and coworkers are struggling without the person they consider a family member.
Ase, a Vancouver resident, has worked as the nursing coordinator at West Linn’s Rose Linn Care Center for 15 years. Her friends and colleagues worried when she did not show up to work March 26.
With no one having seen or heard from her since then — and no new information from investigators in the past five months — those colleagues and friends are more concerned than ever.
“Everybody’s struggling terribly with it,” said Nicole Oquist, who also works at Rose Linn. “She was like the glue here.”
“She kept us all in line; when everyone was stressed out, she would tell us not to worry,” continued Amy Schauer, another of Ase’s colleagues. “We don’t have the glue anymore. The building is still running, it just isn’t the same. We all come in and do our jobs the same way, but it definitely has changed.”
Since Ase has no family in the area, Oquist and Schauer have regularly checked in with detectives investigating her disappearance. Because she lived in Vancouver, worked in West Linn and was last known to have been in Portland, investigators from all three cities’ police agencies are collaborating on the case. The Federal Bureau of Investigations is now involved as well because Ase crossed state lines the morning of her disappearance, according to Oquist and Schauer.
A public information officer for the Vancouver Police Department told the Tidings there were no updates to share in Ase’s case but confirmed the FBI was involved, though VPD was still leading the investigation.
Oquist and Schauer said detectives have not shared any new information about their investigation or findings since
releasing an affidavit for a search warrant in April.
In that affidavit, officers from the Vancouver Police Department noted that, “there is probable cause to believe that Cristina’s sudden disappearance is related to a serious crime or immediately dangerous medical emergency.”
Oquist and Schauer acknowledged some people online have suspected Anibal Diaz, Ase’s husband, to be involved in her disappearance, partly because he moved back to Argentina in the weeks after she went missing. Police spoke with Diaz after her disappearance but have not disclosed whether or not they believe him to be involved.
For their part, Oquist and Schauer said they check in with Diaz regarding Ase about once a month and say he is devastated by her absence.
“He said that it was just too much for him here, and he couldn't stay here or in that apartment without Cristina,” Schauer said of Diaz.
With both Ase’s and Diaz’s families still in Argentina, it makes sense why Diaz might want to to move back to be with family at a difficult time like this, Schauer and Oquist said.
The two colleages said they also check in with Ase’s sisters in Argentina about once a week.
Her sisters have not heard from her either, they said.
Ase’s colleagues said some people have criticized her family for not speaking publicly about her disappearance, but shared that the family asked them to advocate for Ase on their behalf as they don’t live in the U.S. or speak English.
Though it’s difficult with investigators offering no new information, Oquist and Schauer said they are not giving up hope that they’ll see Ase again. They are hopeful that someone who may have seen Ase around Glenwood Park the morning of March 26 will come forward and share what they saw.
“Trying to keep her name and face out there is our ultimate goal, because someone will eventually be like, ‘I know something.’ We're not going to give up until that happens,” Oquist said.
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