In the early hours a young mother asked her aunt if she could come stay with her. She never arrived.
After sending that text, Paige Kelly, 27, left her son at her boyfriend’s house in Leigh, Greater Manchester on Tuesday.
Her distraught aunt Kate, who replied, but has been left on read, told Metro: ‘We’re beginning to really worry now that something’s really bad has happened, because it’s just so unlike her to go missing.
‘Her son is her absolute world. She’s a really kind and caring person. Everyone that meets her simply falls in love with her, but she’s a very private person.
‘She’s not got a bad bone in her body and for her to go missing like this for so long, leaving her son – it’s just something completely out of character.’
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Her infant son is being shielded from the truth that his mother is missing.
Kate said: ‘He’s been taken out of school this morning because everything had blown up on social media, He is staying with another relative.
‘We didn’t want anyone asking him any questions or anything. Social services are happy for him to stay with them because he’s safe.’
The family have become their own detectives, with Paige’s young nieces and nephews handing out missing posters of Paige at the bus station.
‘I was given an address where she might have been, and asked police to go and see if she was there,’ Kate explained as she was driven to another location to pin up notices.
‘And all I got was, “Well, it’s on the case notes, but a case handler isn’t in”. So they wouldn’t escalate it.
‘I expressed my concerns to them over her mental welfare and her safety. She is extremely vulnerable because her last text message to me was saying how she wanted to get away.
‘I asked the police to go and check the house but they said no-one was in. So no-one has even searched her house at all.’
Addressing Paige directly, Kate begged: ‘Please just contact me. I just want to know you are safe.
‘I love you all the world and more. You can come to me. You have a whole family that love you and support you. We all just want to help.’
After sending her final message, Paige, a former cafe waitress, is believed to have left her house wearing a grey jacket and a grey scarf. She hasn’t been seen since.
Her phone has been switched off, leaving the police unable to trace her location.
Her aunt said: ‘She spoke to her mum in the early hours on Wednesday, but I think her message to me was the last one. I can see someone has read it but she never replied.
‘To have her back would mean everything. We lost her brother ten years ago. I couldn’t love her anymore. We have so many memories of her growing up it’s heartbreaking.’
She demanded police help in the search by checking her banking history and examining CCTV after a series of unconfirmed sightings led nowhere.
Kate hoped that sharing a picture of her son would jog Paige ‘back into reality’ and she would come back for him.
‘He’s the only reason she lives. She is such a doting mother. He is absolutely everything to her,’ she said.
A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson said the force was aware of the missing person’s report.
To report a sighting of Paige you can call GMP on 101, quoting reference MSP/06L4/0001846/25, or visit gmp.police.uk