About 80 people filled an Edgewater church Friday night to pray for the return of one of their own–Simone Theus, 14–as friends and parishioners gave fliers to people in passing cars in hopes that someone would recognize her.
“Somebody, somebody knows something,” shouted church board president Milton Reddick at an hourlong prayer vigil. “Somebody is going to see her.”
Theus’ disappearance Tuesday from a West Rogers Park shopping center has shaken her family and members of Granville United Methodist Church at 1307 W. Granville Ave.
Sonia Hurdle, Theus’ mother, broke down and wept Friday night in one of the church’s front pews as the congregation offered multiple prayers. The parishioners have known Theus since she was a baby.
“We have a God that finds the lost,” said Rev. John Hudson. “He doesn’t leave them lost.”
Earlier Friday, members of the church marched through the strip mall on Howard Street and Western Avenue where Theus was last seen, passing out her picture and a phone number for people to call.
Theus had attended Granville Methodist all her life. She sang in the church choir. She read to the younger children during Sunday school.
But Theus also is a normal teenager, her mother said. Her bedroom walls are covered with posters of R&B group B2K and rap artist 50 Cent. Stuffed animals sit atop her dresser. And sometimes she comes in a little late, her mother said.
“She’s not a perfect daughter,” Hurdle said. “But she is a wonderful, beautiful, sweet child.”
At first, Hurdle thought Theus was running late, she said. Theus had walked to the shopping center to browse at some stores while her mother visited a friend at a nursing home at Western and Touhy Avenues about 11:50 a.m. “I told her to meet me back here in a half hour,” Hurdle said.
When Theus failed to show, Hurdle drove to the shopping center, then drove up and down Howard Street. She called police later that night.
Investigators said Theus never had tried to run away before and had no criminal history. She has lived most of her life in the Edgewater neighborhood with her mother and stepfather, Charles Hurdle, 47, a technician at Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge.
The family moved to its home in the 1200 block of West Rosedale Avenue three years ago.
Theus was in her first year of public school as a freshman at Amundsen High School. According to family and friends, she was doing well.
“That’s why this is unusual,” Belmont Area Sgt. Jesse Jacobs said. “It doesn’t fit the typical 14-year-old rebel. It’s unusual for her.”