Massive Search Underway For Missing Falmouth Woman

By: Christopher Kazarian
Published: 04/30/12

At 7:45 last night Falmouth police were alerted that 84-year-old Anne Burchsted Sayigh had gone missing from her Nobska Road home in Woods Hole.

Less than two hours later, when police were unable to locate her, units from the State Police Department and the Barnstable County Sheriff’s Office were called in to assist with that search.

By 10:30 this morning, nearly 50 officers from the local, county and state levels were in the vicinity of Ms. Sayigh’s home still looking for the elderly resident who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.

A command post had been set up at the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Devil’s Lane parking lot on Oyster Pond Road. Roughly 15 marked and unmarked vehicles were parked on Oyster Pond Road at the intersection of Nobska Road, near the underpass to the Shining Sea Bikeway.

As helicopters from both the State Police and US Coast Guard circled over the MBL parking lot, Falmouth Police Lieutenant Douglas M. DeCosta said the search began last night in the area of Nobska Road. That area has since expanded, he said, to include the bike path because of its access to a number of other areas in town.

Falmouth police, he said, are managing the search and are asking that anyone with clues as to where Ms. Sayigh is call the department at 508-457-2527.

Ms. Sayigh is a white female, 5’8” and weighing 170 pounds with blue eyes and gray, shoulder-length hair. She was last seen wearing a yellow sweater, black pants and white sneakers.