By Richard Gaines
Searchers have located the 42-year-old West Gloucester woman who had been missing for nearly 24 hours after walking away from her Thanksgiving dinner table yesterday.
Gloucester police have confirmed that 42-year-old Tina Cavanaugh has been found, apparently by a civilian, in the woods of West Gloucester, and said the woman is “conscious and alert.” She had been the subject of search by, at one point, more than 40 state and local police and firefighters earlier today.
The Times will update this story as more information becomes available. For full coverage, look to tomorrow’s print and online editions of the Gloucester Daily Times and gloucestertimes.com.
The search for Cavanaugh, a 42-year-old West Parish School parent who walked away from Thanksgiving dinner yesterday afternoon, reached fever pitch this afternoon with the arrival of two dozen state troopers amid sheets of chilling rain.
Cavanaugh was said by her family to have been arguing with her brother Scott just before she got up from the table at about 3:30 and — without taking a coat or her handbag — walked out the front door at 9 Becker Lane, a loop off Thompson Street which drops steeply down to Concord Street just north of Jehovah’s Witness Hall.
In doing so, she left her husband and children, her siblings and parents in her house on the side of White Mountain.
Family members said such behavior was unexpected from Cavanaugh, a mother of two children — James, 15, and Aiden, 5 — and a woman described as tirelessely dedicated, “picking them up at school and dropping them off” by her parents, Claire and Edward Lannon.
They had gathered for a Thanksgiving dinner at the home that her daughter and her husband, Patrick Cavanaugh, were hosting for about 10 members of the two families in the dining room of their modest ranch-style home in the heavily wooded area with very rough terrain.
Family members said they searched in the milder afternoon hours yesterday, from soon after Cavanaugh left the table and disappeared, until about 7 p.m., when they called the police.
More than 35 state and local police and firefighters joined the search in the intense rain and chilly temperatures.
Gloucester police Lt. Joseph Aiello, who was commanding the search operation, moved the communications center from the garage of the Cavanaugh house to West Parish School shortly after learning of the coming of the troopers.
Detective Steven Mizzoni, who was second in command, described the terrain as “nasty.”
The heavy woods in the area are pockmarked by natural crevices in the granite facing of White Mountain, one of Gloucester’s high points, along with some abandoned quarries and mountain bike trails, according to police reports.
Richard Gaines can be reached at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com
