“August: Osage County” actress Misty Upham has not been seen since since Oct. 5 and her father worries that she’s stopped taking her medication for mental illness.
Charles Upham, who called into Seattle’s KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show on Monday to plead for the public’s help and to pressure police to step up their efforts, said he was with her in her sister’s apartment right before she disappeared.
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“She was visibly upset, and she was acting erratically,” he said. “We believe it’s the medication, or the lack of medication that she usually takes to help with her anxiety and her bipolar disorder that she’s been suffering from.”
Upham also insisted that though she’s mentioned suicide in the past, Misty doesn’t believe in killing herself, and in fact believes it to be a sin. “She would never do that,” he insisted. “I don’t think she committed suicide, I’m not fearful of that.”
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Upham expressed frustration with the Auburn, Wash., police department, who declared her a missing person but won’t necessarily search for her. “It just means if she gets arrested, or if she ends up in emergency services, then she’ll be flagged as a missing person,” he explained.
The police also wouldn’t be able to flag her missing person status if she doesn’t have her ID on her, or if she has not committed a crime or needs medical attention.
The actress was last seen leaving her sister’s apartment on Oct. 5 on the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation, 16 miles east of Tacoma, Wash.
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Police had responded to a call of a possible suicide at the apartment, but Upham was gone by the time officers arrived.
“I think that there’s still time that we can find her if we get people out there helping us who know what to look for,” Upham added.
A Native American actress, Misty Upham, a Blackfoot, played housekeeper Johnna Monevata in “August: Osage County” and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for best supporting female for “Frozen River.” She also appeared with Benicio del Toro in last year’s “Jimmy P.”
The Auburn Police Department has not yet responded to TheWrap’s requests for comment.