‘I’m on a mission to find my daughter’
Mother of missing Gloucester woman continues her search over a month after disappearance
In the voicemail Ashley Cerasole left her mother, she said she loved her and couldn’t wait to give her a Christmas hug, but the holidays have come and gone and Michelle Rocheleau doesn’t know where her daughter disappeared to.
Cerasole, 29, walked out of the Cary Avenue Adult Home in Gloucester, where she was living, a little more than a month ago and hasn’t been heard from since.
“I’m on a mission to find my daughter. I have to find her. This is completely insane,” Rocheleau said. “I wake up every morning and I want to say it was just a nightmare, but I wake up and it’s the same thing all over again.”
Surveillance footage shows Cerasole walking south at 3:22 p.m. Dec. 3 on Main Street near Fire Station 1, according to the Gloucester Sheriff’s Office. After sharing the word of her disappearance, the sheriff ’s office was told she continued toward Walmart.
The sheriff ’s office said it searched for Cerasole with drones and dogs, and while the search for her is still active, there aren’t any updates.
Cerasole moved into the assisted living facility, which is home to 56 people, in September. She has seizures and schizoaffective disorder, which is a combination of schizophrenia symptoms and mood disorder symptoms that may include depression or mania.
“She requires her medication just to function, otherwise she may hallucinate. It’s very scary that I don’t know where she is,” Rocheleau said.
Rocheleau is one of the people who has guardianship over Cerasole. Guardianship of an adult is a legal process that gives someone legal authority to make decisions for an individual deemed unable to care for their own well-being.
“After I found out she went missing all I did — I didn’t even sleep — all I did was look for her. I didn’t eat. All I did was look for her,” Rocheleau said. “Who can sleep when your kid is missing?”
Rocheleau has been posting signs around Gloucester and plastering Cerasole’s photos on social media with the hope that someone will be able to help her locate her daughter. She’s been going around town talking to people and hoping to find something the sheriff ’s office may have missed that will help in the search.
“God, it’s not a dream. It’s horrible — that first feeling in the morning. It’s different — the way you look at everything is different. The way you see your life now is different. I can’t imagine my life without her, I can’t,” Rocheleau said.
She said her daughter is very friendly and giving. She’s quick to offer a compliment. She enjoys making jewelry, singing and writing poetry.
Rocheleau believes her daughter was just out for a walk, though she wasn’t supposed to be away from the facility without supervision. Cerasole didn’t have her purse, a coat, a cellphone or a face mask, so Rocheleau believes she had every intention of returning.
She wants Cerasole to know that if she returns she’ll live at home with her family again.
“I was trying to do something I thought would be best for her, but then this happened and I’m horrified,” Rocheleau said.
Anyone with information that will help locate Cerasole is asked to call the Gloucester County Sheriff’s Office at 804-6933890.