VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — This week marks 20 years since a young woman disappeared from Virginia Beach.
Hope Renee Curry was just 23 when she vanished the night of November 11, 2000, from the Texaco station at Rosemont and Holland Roads.
Two decades later, family, friends, and detectives remain baffled.
KEEPING THE HOPE
On November 11, 2000, Hope Curry was visiting her brother's Virginia Beach residence near the 3600 block of Bancroft Road when she received a page around 9:30 in the evening.
Curry, who was a recent mother to a young girl, left to return the page at a nearby payphone. She never returned and was never heard from again.
"Twenty years ago, this was a Texaco, and was the last place Hope was known to be, coming to use the payphone to return a page," said Tiffany Limpert.
Limpert was one of Curry's best friends. She recently returned to the location where Curry was last seen to place a banner detailing Curry's disappearance.
The Texaco has since been replaced by another business whose owners welcome the banner. They, like Limpert, hope the right person will see it, even after all these years.
"I'm sure more than one person knows something, I just don’t know who," Limpert said. “If you had someone missing from your family, your daughter, your mother, you’d want answers, regardless of the worst-case scenario.”
Virginia Beach Police have tried seeking answers in the case but tell 13News Now that her disappearance was a mystery from the start.
"This case is one that started with very little information, a disappearance with no crime scene that could be examined and absolutely no physical evidence," a Virginia Beach Police Department spokeswoman said.
Detectives "aggressively worked" a tip they received in regards to the case in 2015, but it never led them to Hope Curry.
MISSING FROM HAMPTON ROADS
Hope Curry is one of 69 people classified as missing from Hampton Roads over the past 54 years, according to NAMUS.
According to the site, which is run by the National Institute of Justice, every city in Hampton Roads has several people classified as missing:
- Virginia Beach: 33 people since 1975
- Norfolk: 10 people since 1973
- Newport News: 9 people since 1980
- Hampton: 6 people since 1966
- Chesapeake: 4 people since 2005
- Suffolk: 4 people since 1993
- Portsmouth: 3 people since 2011
Missing in Hampton Roads
Some, like Bellamy Gamboa, are murder cases with bodies never found. But others, like Hope Curry, just vanished with no evidence of foul play.
Limpert may have lost her friend, but even 20 years later, she isn't losing hope.
“I don’t really look at it like she’s not here, because I don’t know that she’s not here for sure," Limpert said. "I still dream about it all the time that I'm going to find her."
Anyone with information on Hope Curry's disappearance should contact Virginia Beach Crime Solvers at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP. You can also submit a tip via p3tips.com or by downloading the P3 Tips app available in Apple iTunes and Google Play Stores.