DAVE MUSTAINE Believes Mother-In-Law Was Picked Up By Someone Shortly After She Went Missing

MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine believes that his mother-in-law, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was picked up by someone shortly after she went missing almost three weeks ago and is asking anyone with any information to come forward.

76-year-old Sally Estabrook was last seen at a campground near Julian, California on October 4. Her husband noticed she was gone when he returned from a shower and couldn't find her.

Search-and-rescue teams from four counties and the U.S. Border Patrol and more than 300 volunteers took part in the search for Estabrook.

Speaking to the 101 KGB radio station in San Diego, Mustaine said: "We live in Tennesse, and we have our house in California too, so we had just moved back to Tennessee and then we get this phone call [about Estabrook being missing]. And it's, like, 'Well, is she in the campsite and you're gonna find her in an hour?' 'Is she at a girlfriend's camper or something, or is she gone?' And she's just plain gone. They had bloodhounds, they had cadaver dogs, they had helicopters, motorcycles, ATVs… everybody. And that's why now we're appealing to the community, expanding the perimeter and trying to make people aware of this, because somebody picked her up. There's no way a 76-year-old woman can trek all the way down a mountain like that. So somebody was being nice and trying to help her. And we're thinking that the person who tried to help her is afraid that maybe they did something wrong. We don't care. We just wanna know where she is."

He continued: "The other thing, too, is even the most terrible of convicts still has a mother, and when they're driving down the road and they see this old woman, the person could have pulled over and helped her and have a criminal past and they can't say anything. It could be somebody of Latino descent that is here without documentation and is afraid that they're gonna get deported. It could be a number of different things. We don't care what the situation is. Just help us find my wife's mom."

Mustaine added: "If people think they have to keep her, if they see her, and they wanna hold on to her, you don't have to do that. Just tell us the general direction or the area that she's in. Because, like I said, if there is any reason whatsoever — and I've got a checkered past; I don't care — that somebody doesn't want to have the authorities involved, but they know where she's at, just call 911 and tell us where she's at."

Asked if he was happy with the job that the search-and-rescue teams and law enforcement were doing, Mustaine said: "I am, actually. They have gone on longer than they were supposed to. They held off on the cadaver dogs and switching from rescue to recovery longer than they should have. Even the pilots that were flying the helicopters, they've got a routine that they have to do over the city, and they were all flying back out to the site. They covered 60 square miles with the helicopter. There is no way she went that far. Somebody picked her up."

Mustaine said that Estabrook was in the "severe" stage of Alzheimer's disease and "couldn't put three words together." He added: "That's the thing that is of comfort to us, because we do know that at some point she's gonna go in Heaven, but we don't want it to happen now, for Christ's sakes."

Estabrook is 5 feet 4 inches tall, about 145 pounds with shoulder-length, blond hair. She was last seen wearing a teal top and white, Capri pants.

Because Estabrook suffers from Alzheimer's, she isn't very communicative, but might respond to her name.

Anyone who sees Estabrook should call 911 or the sheriff's department at (858) 565-5200.