SAGUACHE — Edna Quintana was last seen on Wednesday, May 3, 2023. Her family continues to search for her and advocates to keep the case active with law enforcement.
A prayer vigil was held for Quintana in Saguache on Nov. 4. Following the vigil, Edna’s sister, Marilyn, spoke with this reporter about her sister and what the family thinks may have happened to her.
Marilyn said her 56-year-old sister was a doting daughter and would go to her mom’s every day to visit and help in the house.
“The day that my sister disappeared,” Marilyn said. “The last time I had seen her was on a Monday. I had gotten out of work, and she was helping my mom make supper at her house. She went over the next day on Tuesday, my mom and brother got to see her, but I didn’t. Wednesday, I called my mom, and she told me that Edna had left her clothes in the dryer at her house. I told her OK well I will message her for her to go do her laundry.”
She called her sister, but she did not answer, so she went to her mom’s house and asked if she had heard from Edna. Her mom said she had not heard or seen Edna.
“I sent Edna a message that night and I was kind of mad,” Marilyn said. “I figured she would call my mom the next day because she usually did, when I was mad at her, to tell my mom I was mad. She never called.”
Marilyn works in Center and ran into a woman who “always sees my sister, so I asked her, have you seen Edna, and she said no. At this point I got to thinking a little bit. I remember getting home on Thursday and thinking she hadn’t called anyone. I saw my mom on Thursday and my mom said she still hadn’t heard from her. I started to think well this is all really weird, it just didn’t make sense to me.”
By this time, Marilyn was worried and remembered one of Edna’s friends and an individual that Edna was seeing were looking for Edna by her mom’s house. She said it struck her as “really weird,” that everyone was suddenly looking for her sister.
“When they went to look for my sister, they just asked for her,” Marilyn said. “They didn’t say anything to us about her going to the mountains with them or anything.”
Marilyn began asking other family members if they had seen Edna.
“I went to my cousins to ask if they had seen her, and when I went over there, the person my sister was seeing was there too. I asked my cousin and her husband if they had seen Edna, and they told me well we would like to ask you the same thing. My cousin’s husband also started telling me that she had been left in the mountains, and they couldn’t find her. They supposedly sent one of her friends to tell us about it too, but instead, all the friend did was ask for her at my mom’s.”
This was the first time Marilyn had heard that Edna had gone to the mountains with her guy friend on this occasion. Marilyn knew they frequently went up to the mountains together to go hiking and to look for some type of valuable rocks that they would sell together.
Marilyn said she asked the boyfriend that Edna was seeing if they had gone to the mountains, and why he did not say something sooner.
“He said, ‘well I didn’t tell you about it, because I know you don’t like me.’ I explained to him that it was only common sense that if something like this were to happen, that he should tell one of us. This is the first time we had heard about it,” Marilyn said.
Marilyn said one thing that stood out to her was that the boyfriend that her sister was seeing was just listening to all of this at her cousin’s house, as her cousin’s husband was telling her about it, and the guy was just leaning up against the door while eating and nonchalantly suddenly said, “Well, I do have her purse.” Marilyn said that he didn’t seem bothered or sad by it at all, though her sister had been seeing him for a couple of years.
“He also told me he had her purse with her phone, and I asked him to give it to me,” Marilyn said. “So, the story I was told was that my sister and the guy she was seeing had gone up to the mountains, and I don’t know how long they stayed. They supposedly went to their favorite spot, and the guy supposedly told her to not go very far because he couldn’t hear. He also stated that she seemed to be waiting for a car while walking around. He also later stated that he heard a car pulling up, and it was misfiring in the mountains, but told my sister he wouldn’t be able to hear her if she went too far. None of that made sense to me.”
Marilyn said that none of this was adding up. She was also told they had reported her sister missing to the police twice, but when she went to the police, they said they could not do anything until her sister had been missing for 48 hours.
“When I went to go report it, the lady there stated, she had heard something about it too,” Marilyn said. “I was really upset because nobody had told us. I told everyone, when you leave someone up on a mountain you need to let their family members know. I don’t know how or why, but they couldn’t find my sister. I remember not being able to sleep that night either, wondering where on the mountain she could be. I kept thinking she could be cold. There could be animals. Then she was on medication for seizures sometimes, too. It was a horrible night for me.”
Marilyn said she missed work the next day to go with Edna’s kids’ dad to search the area on the mountain where her sister went with her guy friend.
“I had asked the guy she went with up there to draw me a map and tell me where the place was,” Marilyn said. “I went up there and I got to thinking if my sister had come down there was a road. There were houses. I went knocking on the houses. I asked if anyone had seen her. Everybody said that nobody had seen her.”
Marilyn said that when they got back from the mountains her cousin called her and told her law enforcement was there.
“When I got there, everyone was telling the cops the story again,” Marilyn said. “The guy my sister was seeing only talked about everything for about 5 minutes. He told the cops very little and didn’t seem very worried. I don’t know, none of it really adds up.”
Marilyn then said with tears in her eyes and in an emotional voice, “My sister is such a nice person. She doesn’t deserve anything if anything has happened to her. I don’t’ want to think anything bad and I hope she’s OK, but she didn’t call my mom for her birthday or Mother’s Day. We are just so worried. I never thought something like this could happen. It is so frustrating, and it hurts so much to not know where she is. We still look out the window for her. We still look for her outside the door. We are waiting for her to come home. We really wish she would."
Marilyn is hoping that somebody will read her story and come forward. If anyone has any information about the whereabouts of Edna Quintana, they are asked to contact their local law enforcement agency, or the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
