BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- Investigators are struggling for leads in the search for an Alzheimer's-stricken man and his wife, who disappeared after leaving behind cash, credit cards and thawing meat on the counter.
Norman Olson, 73, and his wife, Yvonne, 69, have been missing since Aug. 14. Foul play has not been ruled out, but "at this time we don't see it," Sheriff Eugene Molbert said Tuesday.
"The hardest thing is, when we do go to the house, there's nothing to indicate there's anything wrong except they're not there," Norman Olson's son, Mark, said at a news conference in which family members at times broke down in tears as they pleaded for help from the public.
Mark Olson said he last talked to his parents the weekend before they disappeared, and described the phone conversation as a "typical call to them on a Sunday." Family members said Yvonne Olson was making sweet pickles and organizing a bake sale when she disappeared.
The couple left behind Yvonne Olson's purse with cash and credit cards, and her glasses were found on the garage floor at their home in Hettinger. Their 1999 tan Ford Taurus was gone.
A dining room chair was wedged under the doorknob, Mark Olson said. Molbert speculated that Norman Olson might have placed the chair there out of "paranoia" resulting from his illness. Authorities found no sign of forced entry into the home, he said.
The sheriff also said a .22-caliber revolver was missing from its usual place in the house.
A ground and air search in southwestern North Dakota last week turned up no sign of the couple. The family is asking people in other parts of North Dakota, as well as in Montana, South Dakota and Minnesota, to search their property and put up missing persons posters.
"There's no theory ... that makes sense completely," said another son, Blake Olson. "We don't even have a good guess."
