Kapa`au Woman Missing, May Have Gone to Waimanu Valley

Police are asking for the public’s help locating a recent transplant to the Big Island.

Claudette Morell moved to Hawaii in May, and was living recently in Kapa`au. She last spoke to her mother on Aug. 29, saying she was taking a five-day trip to Waimanu Valley.

On Sept. 7, Morell’s mother received a text from an unknown telephone number that said Morell would be in Waimanu Valley for an extended period of at least two to four weeks.

When Morell’s mother called the phone number, she spoke to an unidentified man who said that Morell was in Waimanu Valley with “Heather” and “Jake.”

Morell is Caucasian, about 5-foot-3 and 150 pounds, with blue eyes and long, strawberry blonde straight hair. She wears glasses and a straw hat.

She has a tattoo of a vine with leaves from her knee to her ankle on her left leg and a cross-shaped scar on her chest.

Morell drives a 2001 white Chrysler Sebring four-door sedan with a HAN 343 license plate.

Anyone with information on her location is asked to call the police department at 935-3311.

Anonymous tips can be made to Crime Stoppers at 329-8181 in Kona or 961-8300 in Hilo.