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Woman reunited with missing daughter, grandson

Matt Zalaznick

The woman, Denise Schlotterer, left her Denver home with her 17-month-old son, Zachary, two weeks ago and, without telling her husband or anyone else, took a bus to the valley, says her mother, Monika Gotthold.

None of her family members heard from her until Wednesday afternoon, when her mother found her and the toddler at the Ealge River Village trailer park in Edwards, Gotthold says.

“Everything was OK. She was fine, the baby was fine,” says Gotthold, a former valley resident who moved to the Front Range three months ago.



Gotthold says she suspected her daughter was in the valley because she had left home and come to the valley without telling anyone before. Schlotterer knows lots of people in the valley but she had never been missing for more than a few days, Gotthold says.

“She just said to her husband that she was taking Zachary for a walk,” Gotthold says.

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There was some concern because Schlotterer, who her mother says has a slight developmental disability, had been spotted in Avon and Edwards in recent days without her baby.

Gotthold had been hanging posters throughout the valley and searching for her daughter every day, she says.

“She’s very nice and she’s very friendly,” Gotthold says. “She will go up and talk to lots of people.”

Wednesday afternoon Gotthold says she went to the Edwards trailer park and when she showed a man there Schlotterer’s picture, he said he thought he’d seen her and the toddler staying in a trailer there.

Gotthold went to the trailer and found her daughter and her grandson, she says.

“I’m very happy,” Gotthold says.

Matt Zalaznick can be reached at 949-0555, ext. 606, or via e-mail at mzalaznick@vaildaily.com.


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