Woman Missing Eight Years Is Home for Christmas

Reuters ^

[Dallas]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) -

A woman who had been wandering the streets for eight years was headed home for a Christmas reunion with her family because she remembered she once had invested in the stock market.

When a bedraggled Alice Perley wandered into the brokerage firm of A.G. Edwards & Sons in Nashville earlier this week the first person she met by the elevator was Michael Guess.

"I could tell she was homeless," Guess, a financial analyst with the firm, told Reuters on Friday. "It was obvious she needed help."

When the woman told him she thought she had some money invested with the firm, Guess was skeptical but "we need to help people regardless and I wasn't going to walk away from her." So the 44-year-old Guess invited the woman into his office and listened to her story.

"She was vague about everything except that she remembered the name of our firm and felt that somehow she had money with us," said Guess.

Guess said he and another broker took some cash from their own pockets to give her but she refused, insisting she had money in an account.

"I knew something was going on then," Guess said. "So I put through a call to our company's office in Atlanta and asked them to check on it."

A few minutes later he had confirmation that Perley was a client -- and that she had been missing for eight years despite exhaustive search efforts by her family.

Guess said it appeared that Perley, a college graduate with a chemistry degree, property and other investments, had disappeared from her home in Kentucky after a painful divorce. She left a commercial flight during a stopover at Nashville's airport and lived in the woods, on the streets and in shelters in the intervening years.

The firm refused to say what her investment amounted to or to characterize it in any way, citing customer confidentiality.

While Guess was still on the phone with the Edwards office in Atlanta, the woman's brother, Fred Perley of Charlotte, N.C., called and talked to her.

"She was happy -- really very happy when she heard her brother's voice," Guess said. "It was obvious she was ready to come home. At that point, I left the office to give them privacy but I don't mind saying I felt a real glow myself."

The brother came to Nashville Friday to take the woman home. Said Guess:

"Well, that's what Christmas is really all about, isn't it? We're not supposed to judge others. We're supposed to remember to help one another and not just walk on by -- aren't we?"

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Michael Guess c/o AG Edwards - Nashville Branch
NASHVILLE, TN
230 4TH AVENUE NORTH SUITE 200
NASHVILLE, TN 37219-2104
Phone: 615-244-4000
alternate phone: 800-289-4009

[syriacus]

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/state/article/0,1406,KNS_348_1592645,00.html

As it turned out, she got off the plane in Nashville, stayed in the airport until authorities kicked her out and then roamed the streets for years, relatives said.

"A week of homelessness turned into a month, and a month into a year, and she just spiraled down and down," Fred Perley told The Tennessean newspaper.

Her fortune started changing earlier this year when she was accused of causing a public disturbance and was sent to court.

Prosecutors agreed to move her case to mental health court, where a judge ordered her to see a psychiatrist. As a result, she began taking depression medication again and received temporary shelter. She even worked in a restaurant for a while until it closed about a month ago.

"She said this was the first winter in seven years she spent indoors," Shelby Perley said.

Mark Fishburn, the presiding judge at Davidson County's mental health court, said Perley was focused on finding a job and permanent housing.

Then she walked into Guess' office to inquire about her long-forgotten investment account.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Maybe she'll be a "recovering Democrat"? Sounds more like the husband is a Democrat? My prediction is that Ms. Penley will be a conservative by the next election :-).

[Publius6961]

Sorry......just too many holes in this story.

Yeah.
Sounds much like those cutesy or tearjerker stories that constantly make the rounds on the web, made up by well-meaning folks with waaaaaay too much time on their hands.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Have you ever read "The Client" by John Grisham? You know the lawyer who handles the young client? Reggie? Well, her case probably isn't so "fictional". I have a friend whose doctor-pediatrician-husband looks great out in public, but he's a really nasty pompass, self-indulgent character behind closed doors, to the point where he's even thrown his own son up against the wall in impatience. This friend of mine is now finding out that her soon-to-be ex-husband-doc has been financially screwing her for years - hiding investments, etc. apparently planning ahead for the divorce. My friend was about to go off the deep end, until people like me helped her get a grip on things and realize that she could fight back.

[oldvike]

Thanks for posting this! What a great story.

[syriacus]

Thanks so much for posting this. It's a very encouraging story.

[Demidog]

Its the money that makes the difference. Otherwise, they would have kicked her to the curb.

Right. That's why they offered to give her their own. Sheesh scrooge.

[SunnyUsa]

wow...great story!

Those brokers really did the unusual - giving this woman a chance to tell her story. What a wonderful story for the season of Christmas! :)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[syriacus]

Homeless woman, family reunited

Alice Perley had been living in Kentucky when her life fell apart, her brother said. She has a chemistry degree and spent 12 years working for AT&T, owned property and was fairly well off but had gone through a painful divorce. The family arranged for her to fly to Newark to visit relatives. She took the flight, but in an impulsive decision got off at the stopover in Nashville and ended up staying.

[Dallas]

In case I don't see ya again before the holidays.

Merry Christmas.....!

[pgyanke]

"Probably guilt that they lost the money through churning and other crooked practices."

---

Every now and then someone comes out of the woodwork to enthusiastically display their ignorance. Maybe you should do some research into A.G. Edwards... you'll be pleasantly surprised.

[oldvike]

Merry Christmas to you too!

[HaveGunWillTravel]

Yea right. "Here's five bucks honey. Take a walk."

[Eva]

I had a patient, years ago, with a husband like that (I used to be a dental hygienist). She came in to the office so happy one day and told me that she was changing her address, that she had rented an apartment six months earlier and had been secretly furnishing it with money from her household budget and was going to move into it that week-end. I would have loved to see the look on the man's face. (I think that she had already seen a lawyer, as well).

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

It could be that the medication that she was put on was starting to help a bit and she was able to start piecing her life back together. If she had remembered her name and maybe her birth date, the system could have found her and then a quick call to the person in charge of the account could have been made by the brokerage.

My brother works for A.G. Edwards in St. Louis and has never had a bad thing to say about the company.

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men! What a wonderful story of coming home!

[Fred Mertz]

What a great story.

[Tex-Con-Man]

Would someone PLEASE turn off the cynics’ magnet! Good grief!

(What a great story.)

[Fiddlstix]

Would someone PLEASE turn off the cynics’ magnet! Good grief!

I Second That!