Sharon Hopf

The search continues for a missing southeast Iowa woman. Fourty-five-year-old Sharon Hopf of rural Crawfordsville disappeared last Thursday morning. Her car turned up this weekend at an abandoned home in Wright City, Missouri, but Hopf was nowhere to be found.

The car, a 1999 white Chevy Lumina, was brought back to Iowa Monday. Ron Sojka, Hopf’s cousin, said family members and friends are trying to figure out how Hopf’s vehicle ended up in Missouri.

“We just like to see her safe return home…her husband is worried sick,” Sojka said. The Washington County Sheriff’s office said they’re working with a lab to determine if any of the evidence in the car will help progress their search.

Family friend Joe Bennett said it’s not like Hopf, a business owner and mother of two, to just disappear. “I’m still in shock over all this, but we’re all out doing the best we can to help find her and, you know, we’d like to know she’s okay,” Bennett said.

Officials in Missouri searched the area where the car was found, but didn’t find anything. Hopf went missing last Thursday while headed to her furniture store in Kalona. Her cell phone signal disappeared shortly after 7 a.m. and her credit card was used minutes later at a gas station in Ainsworth, along Interstate 80.

Investigators said there’s no surveillance video from the gas station to help them determine if Hopf was with anyone at the time.

Anyone with information about Hopf’s disappearance is asked to call the Washington County Sheriff’s office at 319-653-2107.

Hopf’s family has started a Facebook page in hopes of finding information: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=14831730#!/findsharon

By Addison Speck, KCRG-TV, Cedar Rapids