By Justin Schneider
ANDERSON — Sabrena Pattat left her Anderson home sometime on the morning of Aug. 6.
She took with her only a few personal effects: some articles of clothing, a laptop computer, a digital camera, her Nintendo DS video game. At 24, she felt ready to strike out on her own.
But Sabrena is not a typical 24-year-old. Diagnosed at birth with cerebral palsy, she is limited both in her motor skills and her intellectual state. Her parents, Thomas and Cheryl Pattat, say Sabrena walks with a limp and has the perpetual mental state of a 16-year-old.
“She’s very intelligent, but she doesn’t have any common sense,” said Thomas, 54. “She’s not a problem-solver. If she gets into a situation that’s difficult for her, she can’t work through it.”
Perhaps, like a willful 16-year-old, Sabrena failed to grasp the consequences of her actions. In a sense, she set out to find a world outside that matched her fantastic world inside.
An uncommon life
Sabrena’s life began in Houston, Texas, Cheryl’s hometown and where Sabrena’s two siblings still reside.
The family made its home in Illinois for 15 years before coming to Anderson in December 2004. The family opened a Culver’s fast-food franchise at 6386 S. Scatterfield Road and bought a home on South Rangeline Road, just outside the Anderson city limit.
At 5 or 6, her parents discovered that Sabrena experienced pround epileptic seizures that could last from seconds to hours. A prescription medication, Tegretol, brought the seizures under control, but it became clear that she would never live a life of full independence.
Sabrena attended school in Illinois through her sophomore year at Blue Ridge High School in Farmer City, Ill., when her parents decided to home-school Sabrena with a focus on life skills.
“We wanted to teach her what she needed to know,” Thomas said. “How to do the laundry, how to balance your checkbook, how to make a grocery list.”
Sabrena sometimes worked at the Culver’s restaurant. Her cerebral palsy meant she received Supplemental Security Income, but it also meant social isolation. Despite her limitations, Sabrena became a strong reader, taking refuge in books, her own writing and the Internet.
And she was smart enough to know that Wednesday, Aug. 6, in particular, would afford her a chance to escape.
“She knows Wednesday is a pretty safe day to leave,” Thomas said. “We have a breakfast group in the morning, so we’re (at the restaurant) at 5:30 in the morning. She knows we’re going to be tied up for several hours in the morning. ... Any other day could be hit-or-miss.”
Thomas said Sabrena cannot drive. Most likely, her parents say, Sabrena took a few flat-footed steps out the door and into an awaiting vehicle that morning.
“We pulled the home computer and found nothing on the computer as to where she would have contacted anyone to get her,” said Anderson Police Department Detective David Callahan, who has been working on the case. “We contacted the cab companies; they have no record of being out there. Same with the bus company, Greyhound.”
It wasn’t the first time Sabrena had left home on her own.
First flight
In January, Sabrena made her first escape attempt.
“She called a cab, went to the bus station and got on a bus to Nashville, Tenn.,” Callahan said. “She hooked up with a guy named William Baggett Jr., who she met on the Internet.”
Sabrena left a note on a dry-erase board, telling her parents she would use her cell phone to call the following day. In a panic, they called first. Sabrena admitted where she was and, when they came down to talk, she agreed to return home with her parents.
They later discovered that Sabrena gave Baggett, who Thomas said was married and unemployed, hundreds of dollars for an apartment and even bought him a computer. Baggett filed a complaint with the Nashville Police Department, claiming Thomas forcibly took Sabrena away, but no further action was taken.
It was clear to the Pattats that, although Sabrena was a grown woman, she could not care for herself properly. They sought legal intervention to give them control of her affairs.
Upon returning to Anderson, the Pattats took their daughter into Madison County Circuit Court. Judge Fredrick Spencer ordered Sabrena to spend four days at the Anderson Center for Mental Health, and the family doctor prescribed an antidepressant and an appetite enhancer.
The Pattats were granted temporary guardianship of Sabrena for 30 days and planned to apply for permanent guardianship. A physician entered testimony in the order, and Spencer wrote “... that the Appointment of Permanent Guardians for Sabrena R. Pattat is necessary and proper due to Sabrena R. Pattat’s incompetence regarding her physical, mental and financial affairs.”
It appears Sabrena shared the terms of the order with her chat group. At the conclusion of the 30 days, the Pattats say, a man named Charles Hager from Vermontville, Mich., appeared at their restaurant.
“He asked for Sabrena,” Thomas Pattat said. “Well, she was standing right there, and he didn’t recognize her. She didn’t recognize him, either, but when he said his name she knew who he was. He turned to her and said, ‘Would you like to leave?’ and she said ‘Yes.’”
Thomas threatened to call the police, and Hager left without Sabrena.
But the incident raised even more questions. Who was this man? What was his connection to Sabrena? And what had compelled him to travel all the way to Indiana?
Life of fantasy
Thomas and Cheryl were the center of Sabrena’s life. She worked and lived alongside them and often socialized with them, playing cards with their friends.
But in her private moments, she retreated into a world of imagination.
Already a strong reader, Sabrena turned to the Internet, where she found a community that took refuge in fantasy and storytelling, as she did. She became interested in Japanese animation, or anime, as well as the Harry Potter book series. She even wrote fan fiction, original storylines created by fans who don’t want the story to end.
“She’s always got her nose stuck in a book or, if she’s got her laptop with her, she’s reading fan fiction,” Thomas said. “She’s written some of her own stories, so that’s where a lot of this science fiction or fantasy comes into play.”
She identified herself as an “otaku,” a Japanese term referring to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime and video games. “Just an otaku who spends most of her time in the cyber world,” she wrote, using her screen name, “Alara Moonrunner.”
After she ran away in January, Sabrena’s parents limited her computer access and kept her close at all times.
“(For) two and a half months, we wouldn’t let her out of our sight,” Thomas said. “Wherever we went, she went. If we went to work, she went to work. If we went to the store, she went to the store.”
Eventually, she regained her computer priveleges. Things went from bad to worse.
“After they brought her back home (in January), she continued her activity on the Internet,” Callahan said. “They figured out that she got on Web sites where people believed in paganism and werewolves.”
Along with the screen name “Alara Moonrunner,” Sabrena used the image of a wolf to portray herself online. Six months before her first runaway attempt, Sabrena’s parents said her imagined life began to intrude into her real life, manifesting itself in strange behavior.
“She started going outside at night,” said Cheryl, 48. “She started eating her steaks rare.”
Sabrena poured salt on the window sills and the doorway of her room to protect her from evil spirits and refused to wear her glasses, claiming that she now had perfect vision. She also frequented Web sites associated with a group called “Ordo Umbra,” which uses prevalent wolf imagery and has a presence on both MySpace and Yahoo.
“She’s met people online that have filled her head with all kinds of stuff, and she believes all this stuff,” Cheryl said. “She’s got herself convinced, they’ve told her that she’s a wolf incarnate.”
Mysterious influences
An introduction on both the MySpace and Yahoo pages for Ordo Umbra reads: “Welcome to the Ordo Umbra. We are a wolf pack but accept other werecreatures to run with us if they so wish but they have to understand the rules of a wolf pack.”
Lycanthropy is the term used to describe the ability or power of a human being to undergo transformation into a wolf or wolf-like characteristics. It is unclear whether this term could be applied to Sabrena, but her behavior was enough to alarm her parents.
The Pattats tried to infiltrate “Ordo Umbra,” but were denied access by the group. A friend and private detective, Marvin Stanley, also tried and failed, as did a family member.
But Cheryl discovered a message sent to Sabrena offering her some advice.
“This, right here, is what they told her to do after we went and took her to the doctor,” Cheryl said. “‘Do not tell anyone you want to kill yourself. No howling or growling. Do not cast that spell.’”
On Aug. 30, the Pattats received a mysterious tip via e-mail. The sender was identified as “david grouse (that_1_freak_2004@yahoo.com).” It read:
“Sabrena Pattat fits the description of a very confused woman located in Nashville, TN. I am concerned that she may be hanging out with others, who themselves appear to be mentally unstable and incapable of caring for themselves, let alone her. I only happen to know one of the men in the group of people that she appears to hang around, William Baggett Jr. I happened to stumble across this ad when an Internet friend of mine, who requested to remain anonymous, mentioned a group named ‘Orda Umbra,’ [sic] along with Sabrena and the missing poster. I hope that this can somehow help, Concerned American Citizen.”
The Pattats were unable to track the e-mail’s author or contact him, but they did have something to go on.
Callahan had already contacted the Nashville Police Department, which sent officers to William Baggett’s residence on the night Sabrena disappeared, the following day and a third time. No trace of Sabrena.
After her first disappearance, a court issued a restraining order to prevent Sabrena and Baggett from seeing or contacting each other. But Baggett told police Sabrena would call and talk to his wife. The relationship between Sabrena and Baggett’s wife is unclear to investigators.
Sabrena left her cell phone behind and records show she made several phone calls to Baggett on the morning she disappeared. A call placed at 7:59 a.m. lasted six minutes, another at 8:29 a.m. lasted four minutes, a call at 10:42 a.m. lasted 10 minutes and a call placed at 11:04 a.m. lasted two minutes.
She hasn’t been heard from in a month.
Without a trace
There has been no activity on Sabrena’s Medicaid card or debit card since her disappearance. A check with Walgreen’s pharmacy showed that Sabrena had not filled her prescriptions for anti-seizure medication, antidepressants or acne treatment.
A check of her Social Security number suggests that Sabrena has not attempted to get a job, Callahan said. He said one of the calls to Baggett was simply a voice mail.
“When he got this message on his phone, he thought she would wind up down there,” Callahan said. “I listened to the message, and it said, something to the effect of, ‘Hi, this is Sabrena. I wanted to let you know that because of the mental and sometimes physical abuse, I can no longer live here. I love you, goodbye.’”
Before her most recent attempt to run away, Sabrena’s parents thought their daughter was improving.
“She calmed down quite a bit and we thought she was getting over this because the antidepressant really seemed to help her out, calm her down,” Thomas said.
A few weeks before she disappeared, her parents said, Sabrena said something ominous.
“She made mention that we should have left her down in Nashville,” Thomas said. “It was kind of out of the blue and it passed quickly. We didn’t think about it too much.”
Thomas and Cheryl have hung posters with Sabrena’s picture in the Anderson, Nashville and Vermontville, Mich. areas. On Thursday, they passed Sabrena’s 25th birthday without celebration, not knowing her whereabouts.
“I really, really thought she would (call),” Cheryl said. “It was her birthday. I thought she would call to say, ‘Hey, I’m OK.’ It’s really tough. You just don’t know.”
Even if Nashville police find Sabrena, they said, they may not take her into custody because a civil order made in Indiana may not be enforceable. Thomas said his daughter is gullible, trusting in what people tell her and unable to recognize sinister intentions.
Adding to their anxiety is the fact that Sabrena brought only a four-day supply of the seizure medication Tegretol. She had not had an episode in more than a year, but without her pills, they fear for her safety.
“We’re concerned that if she is involved with this group or even if it’s someone else, they’re not going to know the situation,” Thomas said. “They might not even understand if she goes into a seizure. They’re not going to know what to do about it. We really feel that she’s in danger.”
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Missing
Name: Sabrena R. Pattat (pronounced “pat it”)
Residence: Anderson
Birthdate: Sept. 4, 1983
Race: Caucasian
Height/weight: 5 feet tall, 110 pounds
Hair: Brown, shoulder length
Missing since: Aug. 6, 2008
Medical condition: Cerebral palsy, seizures
Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of Sabrena Pattat is asked to call her family at (765) 623-4001, (765) 623-4003, or the Madison County Sheriff’s Department at (765) 642-0221 and mention case No. 2008-6272.
