A missing Fayetteville woman who was found safe in Virginia told authorities she walked there.
Wilma Edwards, last seen in Fayetteville on Sept. 19, turned up this week at a shelter 200 miles away near Richmond, according to the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office.
Authorities in Henrico County, Va., tracked her origins through a database of missing people, said Debbie Tanna, a spokeswoman for the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office. Edwards told staff at the shelter she had traveled there on foot, Tanna said.
The 56-year-old Edwards, known mostly as Miss Betty, was carrying a white bucket with a red lid containing some personal items when her family last saw her, Tanna said. At the time, she refused their pleas to come home.
Edwards was known to walk long distances with her bucket, often trekking 20 miles or so and taking a seat on her bucket when she got tired, Tanna said.
A month after she disappeared, law enforcement officers spent a Monday afternoon canvassing an area along U.S. 301 without success.
Edwards was without needed medication, and the money in her bank account remained untouched during her disappearance, Tanna said.
After she was found, the family told officers she had disappeared once before, only to surface in New York.
Her family is making arrangements to bring her home.
"As long as she'd been gone, we didn't think we would find her alive," Tanna said. "What a wonderful Christmas present for her family."
