Investigators were tipped off to 27-year-old Candice Lashea Cooper Boley’s intentions to travel to Miami when a Birmingham cab driver told police Wednesday morning that Boley’s car was parked at his home.
Oxford police Sgt. L.G. Owens said Boley, last seen in Oxford the morning of New Year’s Eve, traveled to Birmingham that day, flagged down a random cab driver and told him she’d give him her car in exchange for a ride and the fare to pay for a bus ride to Miami.
The cab driver, who told police he’d never met Boley before she stopped him outside of the Greyhound station, agreed. He said he drove Boley first from the station to a bookstore where she bought a couple of books, then back to the station where she gave him the keys to her tan 1994 Buick Lesabre in exchange for bus fare.
Clerks at the station confirmed with Oxford police Wednesday that Boley purchased a Miami ticket in her name between 1 p.m. and 9 p.m. New Year’s Eve.
The cab driver told investigators that Boley informed him that she was headed to Miami “for a new start,” Owens said.
“But until I have someone in law enforcement say, ‘Yes, I ran into her,’ she’ll remain entered (as a missing person),” Owens said. “But from everything I’ve heard now, she’s not endangered.”
Boley was last seen dressed in medical scrubs at her boyfriend’s Oxford home Dec. 31.
Around 8 that morning, she sent her boyfriend and her mother, Angie Morris, text messages indicating that she would stop by Morris’ Pell City workplace before heading to Always There In-Home Care, the Birmingham health-care business where she’d told family members she’d worked for the past month.
But Boley never showed up at her mom’s workplace or Always There In-Home Care, and she missed a 4 p.m. appointment to pick up her 6-year-old daughter at her ex-husband’s home in Odenville.
Information provided to Morris and investigators Monday revealed that Boley had apparently lied to her family about where she worked.
Employees with Always There In-Home Care confirmed to Morris and investigators that Boley interviewed at the business but was never hired.
Investigators didn’t have answers Wednesday as to why Boley would be headed for Miami, and attempts to reach Boley’s family members Wednesday were unsuccessful.
“She’s … out of the city of Oxford now,” Owens said. “Though why she’s not telling her folks where she is, I don’t know.”
Star staff writer Cameron Steele: 256-235-3562.
