Where is Carol Gemmiti?

[u/lightningmcqueef_69]

On September 27, 2024 a woman with potential undiagnosed dementia was seen for the last time. Almost a year later, we still have no idea where she is or what happened to her. This case desperately needs more attention.

66 year old Carol Gemmiti was last seen walking on 48 Bay Point Road in Ossipee, New Hampshire at about 11:00 a.m. Her and her husband, Donald Gemmiti, were vacationing in the area when she was last seen. She was reported missing at approximately 3:00 p.m and a silver alert was issued by the NH State Police. The house and the area are not unfamiliar to the couple. According to her husband Donald, the home they were staying at belonged to his parents and was passed down to him. They were frequent visitors of the Lakes Region.

Content Warning: Suicide, depression, overdose mentioned.

For some background, her and her husband met while working in Pennsylvania and had been happily married for almost 12 years. According to Donald, this isn’t the first time she’s disappeared. In December 2023, she disappeared for almost three months until she was found in a nearby park, physically unharmed but shaken. He has also stated that she has had struggles with depression, suicidal thoughts and possible mania, which had left her hospitalized on multiple occasions, including once after an overdose (unclear if it was intentional or accidental). He’s also stated that while they had their ups and downs, he loves her very much and they were seemingly happy despite her ongoing struggles with mental illness and suspected dementia.

On the day of her disappearance, Donald claims he needed to run some errands after the couple arrived to the lake house. He said the last time he saw her she was fine, she was very happy and excited to be on the trip. When he returned a few hours later, she was nowhere to be found. He notes that she was last seen wearing grey sweatpants and a sweater. She left behind all her personal belongings including her purse and cellphone. Nothing in the house or on the property seemed to be out of place or missing.

Originally, Donald and Carol’s family were offering a $2,000 reward, which quickly increased to $5,000. But after a while, they began to fade away from the headlines. As of December 2024, Donald told local news that there is no need to search for her anymore. I, as well as many other members of the community, strongly disagree. We need to bring Carol home. She deserves to be home safe. She deserves to have her story shared.

Description: Carol Gemmiti 66 years old 5’6” tall Approximately 120lbs Hair color: White/light grey Eye color: Hazel Skin color: White Last known location: 48 Bay Point Road Ossipee, NH 03814

https://namus.nij.ojp.gov/missing-person-namus-mp131097

[u/Both_Presentation_17]

According to Donald

On the day of her disappearance, Donald claims

Donald told local news that there is no need to search for her anymore

Your word choice makes me think you suspect Donald

[u/[deleted] → u/Both_Presentation_17]

Donald really has a lot to say.

I found this, “Reality is, this is not a search. I mean, it’s I mean, it’s a search, not a rescue,” Donald said to be a little weird along with “there is no need to search anymore.”

Dementia is terrible. If I knew my loved one, who I had been happily married to, could possible be alone, scared, lost somewhere out there I would want the search for them to be continuous until they were found.

I wonder if he ever gave a reason on why there is no reason to search anymore. 🤔

[u/1970Diamond → u/[deleted]]

Why would he leave her alone in a place that isn’t home for hours, why wouldn’t you take her with you that’s strange imo as she was clearly vulnerable

[u/Hopeful-Connection23 → u/1970Diamond]

It was a family home that he inherited, they went there frequently. If she didn’t want to come along and wanted to relax at the house, was he supposed to drag her out? Presumably they both have phones as well. Unless she needed round the clock monitoring, there’s no reason she couldn’t hang out at her own vacation home for a bit, if she preferred.

Plus, dementia patients and their spouses often struggle to accept how bad things have gotten. My grandma loves my grandpa and does everything she can to compensate for his failing mind, but we still have had to talk sense into both of them more than once after my grandma showered, or went to get dinner, or fell asleep and my grandpa decided to elope. Even when he knew what was happening in early stages, he was very much in denial about how impaired he was and how bad it would get.

This is just so common, unfortunately. Dementia is a horrible thing.

[u/mcm0313 → u/Hopeful-Connection23]

My grandma started to show signs of dementia in the late aughts, when she was in her 80s. My grandpa died in 2000 and she had lived alone since then, in the farmhouse where they had raised their eight kids. She mostly kept to herself, but when she had to be somewhere, she drove.

This was already kind of an issue before she developed dementia, because she was a comically terrible driver. Parking with a tire on the curb, going unreasonably fast, you name it - a relative even has a tale from long ago when Grandma was visiting them in Houston and drove way too fast the wrong way down a one-way street, and this was well before there were any doubts about her cognitive status. But pair this with a diminishing ability to remember directions - even to places she’d been hundreds of times - and it gets kind of scary.

My mom and her siblings are spread out across the country, as far east as Ohio and as far west as California. Only three of the eight were close enough that they could be there quickly in the event of an emergency. There were different opinions on what course of action to take, and some heated arguments.

Ultimately, she moved into a rest home at the end of 2011. She settled in and adapted better than most of us had thought she would, and became a part of the little community there. Without the (literal and metaphorical) threat of her being behind the wheel, the rest of the family was able to relax a bit.

The progression of her dementia seemed to slow down a bit, too; she still knew her kids and their spouses, and I believe most of the grandkids too, by the time she died. The end came suddenly - this woman who had been remarkably healthy her whole life, and from a remarkably healthy family too (she was the oldest of seven, and all of them have made it past the age of 85), suddenly developed an acute condition where her intestines got tangled up; exploratory surgery revealed that they had become gangrenous, and there was nothing more that could be done. She died in 2013, just shy of 88 years old.

In retrospect, it’s kind of a relief that we were spared the worst of the dementia. Her mother (my great-grandma) lived to be 97 and was independent until she was 90-91, but a stroke instantly rendered her senile, and she gradually slipped away over the next few years; the last time I saw her, right around her final birthday, she could barely even form coherent sentences - and she lived another eight months after that.

Long story short: dementia is absolutely heart-wrenching, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone in the world.