Virginia father says he’s not concerned about missing wife and children

Police are continuing to search for a Virginia woman and her three children who have been considered missing for two weeks, despite her husband telling reporters that he is not concerned.

Lauren Elizabeth Cook, 30, and her three children—Benjamin, 7, Hannah, 5, and 2-year-old Elijah—were last seen in Franklin County on September 5, according to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office.

“Since then, communication efforts with Lauren have been unsuccessful,” the sheriff’s office wrote in the September 13 post. The post featured photos of Cook and her children and asked the public for help locating them.

The children are listed on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s website. They may be traveling in a blue 2013 Chrysler van with a Virginia license plate, the nonprofit organization said.

But Jordan Cook, Lauren Cook’s husband and the father of the three children told Lynchburg news station WSET-TV on Monday that he has been in contact with his wife.

“Contrary to what has been reported, my wife and children are not ‘missing,’” he said in a statement to the station. “I have no reason to be concerned about their safety or well-being. I have heard from my wife, and I’m sure she and my children are doing well. We ask that our family’s privacy be respected at this time.”

Newsweek could not immediately reach Jordan Cook for further comment.

The sheriff’s office is still continuing to search for Cook and her children.

“If the husband has had contact with Lauren since then, we aren’t aware of it,” Sergeant Megan Huston told USA Today on Tuesday. “Lauren Cook and the three children are still entered as missing. Law enforcement (wherever it may be) has to lay eyes on her and the children in order for them to be removed as missing from the system.”

Huston said when Cook’s mother last spoke with her on the phone around September 5, she said she and the children were visiting family in New York.

Her cellphone last pinged on September 7 in Lexington, Virginia, about 90 miles northeast of the family’s home in Ferrum, Huston said, and her bank account has had no recent activity.

In a news release on Tuesday, the sheriff’s office said it began a missing persons investigation on September 13 after Cook did not appear for a scheduled court appearance in Franklin County Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court. That date had already been rescheduled from a prior date of September 5, when she did not appear.

Deputies followed up with family members who had lost contact with Cook and her children several days prior, the sheriff’s office said.

“It was at this time that the missing person report was made and she and the kids were entered by law enforcement as missing persons,” the sheriff’s office said. There has been no reported contact with Cook since September 5 or 6, when she said that she was in New York visiting family.

The sheriff’s office said investigators confirmed the family was in Litchfield, Illinois, on September 14.

“The family has connections in various other states, and it is suspected that they are not in Franklin County,” the sheriff’s office said. “To clear Lauren and her children from being ‘missing persons,’ a law enforcement agency must make in-person contact with them in order to confirm that they are okay and not under duress. Until then, they will remain in local and national databases as ‘missing.’”

Anyone with information about where Lauren Cook and her children may be is urged to contact the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office at 540-483-3000 or local law enforcement.