The three sons of Loida Wideman, who vanished on Mother’s Day 2012, want to do something for their mom on the anniversary of her disappearance: May 13.
Her sister Mary Grace De Guzman will decorate Wideman’s 2003 gold Saturn Ion, then she and her brother, Junior Gabon, will drive it Monday from her Waipahu home to Lehua Avenue in Pearl City, where the car was found a few days after her disappearance.
"We will do it in remembrance of her, and the kids wanted to have a memorial day for their mom," she said. "We will do it for the kids and for the family."
The 39-year-old single mom was last seen leaving her Kahualena Street home at 9:30 p.m. for work in Kapolei, where she was employed as a certified nurse aide at a nursing home. Her car was found three days later parked on Lehua Avenue, 1.5 miles from her home.
The car showed no signs of foul play or of being broken into, Gabon had said.
The case remains classified as a missing-person case, and police have had no suspects.
Gabon and his wife are now raising Wideman’s three sons.
The boys, Caliph, now 12, Cameron, 8, and Cairo, 6, are doing well, getting very good grades in school and continuing to receive help from a therapist, he said.
De Guzman said her sister was "sweet and nice," but said she did not want to say more because it would cause her to cry.
The family has said Wideman was a loving mother who was responsible and worked two jobs to support her children.
Wideman’s mother, who had lived with her and her sons, doesn’t say much about her missing daughter, Gabon said.
But "she’s been thinking about her every day," he said. "There’s no day she does not pray about my sister. She just prays every night. She just tries to comfort herself with the Bible."
De Guzman said, "My mom hopes a lot. She is expecting my sister to come home someday. Whatever she feels, we’re going with that because we don’t want my mom to be sad."
Gabon said, "We are hoping she is still alive" because no body has been found.
He said the recent Cleveland case of three women who were freed after being abducted and held captive "is giving us hope that our sister is still alive."
Honolulu CrimeStoppers coordinator Kim Buffett said police have not received any new tips, and Thursday renewed a request to the public for anyone with any information concerning the missing woman to come forward.
Police have not considered ex-husband Lonnell Wideman a suspect in her disappearance, although he was questioned.
"It’s hard to make somebody a suspect when you have no evidence," Buffett said.
She said detectives have "looked into everything."
Wideman told the Star-Advertiser at his Kapolei home three days after she went missing that he did not know her whereabouts and had no idea what happened to his ex-wife, and when asked about their relationship, said, "We’re fine."
He said she did not have a boyfriend and did not seem unhappy.
Wideman had been working in construction on the rail project, Gabon had said last year.
Wideman also told the Star-Advertiser shortly before the car was found May 16 that the night before her disappearance, he had been working but couldn’t concentrate and was allowed to leave early.
The Hawaii Paroling Authority administrator said a warrant for Wideman’s arrest was issued for violating terms of his parole.
Wideman was on parole at the time for a 1988 attempted-murder conviction for which he is now serving a life sentence at Saguaro Correctional Center in Arizona.
Deputy sheriffs arrested him at the Kapolei townhouse where he lived.
The parole board revoked his parole.
Wideman failed to tell his parole officer he was served with a temporary restraining order in 2011 for allegedly sexually assaulting a Kapolei woman. Nor did he say he had been questioned by police in the disappearance of his ex-wife.
In 1988 he was sentenced to life in prison for the 1985 attempted murder of a 24-year-old Moiliili woman. He is scheduled for a parole board hearing May 2019.
Anyone with information on this case is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300.
