Updated 6-30-17 10:15a to reflect status of search
The wide-angle vista from the front of the Hickory Haven Mobile Home Park a few miles outside of Union Grove includes a mix of farm fields, thick woods, abandoned vehicles, barns, ramshackle homes and expensive estates. Ever since Sunday, searchers have been wondering whether Lynn Rickard is out there somewhere.
Rickard, who apparently has been coping with a bad reaction to a change in medication, crawled through a window in her mobile home and took off on foot early Sunday morning. That’s what her distraught husband, John, tells authorities.
Methodical searches have taken places daily with crews that have varied in size, according to Racine County Sheriff's Dept. spokesman Steve Sikora. Friday's searching, he said, involves smaller teams with more specialized equipment. Wednesday's operation involved 130 people.
Glen Westphal lives four lots away from the Rickard’s. "Everybody has been out looking for her," he said. "Checking underneath their homes. Taking up their (mobile home) skirting. Looking in their sheds and garages. But there's so much deep forest here--so much vegetation."
Westphal took care of the couple’s dog while they were on vacation three summers in a row a few years ago.
He says he and his neighbors aren’t sure what to make of the disappearance. Westphal describes the Rickard's as good people, and said he was unaware of any physical or mental impairement that Mrs. Rickard had, other than a breathing issue that required oxygen. "I didn't think there was anything else wrong with her," he said.
John Rickard said his wife left home without her needed oxygen, and with very little if any clothes on.
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