The last time Martha Mullins heard from her daughter’s voice was the day before she went missing.
On Jan. 21, Kevan McCathran came home to find his wife missing. Dorothy “Dottie” Yates-McCathran, 42, disappeared without a trace leaving behind her purse and ID.
“If you are going to go somewhere you usually take your driver’s license, or your purse, or whatever girls take,” said Chester Mullins, Dottie’s stepfather.
Martha said, “She never went anywhere without her make-up.”
The day before Dottie’s disappearance Martha spoke to her on the phone. She said Dottie was upset because she was unable to travel the 40 minutes from her home in Vivian to Shreveport to see her daughter’s sixth birthday.
Read:To the person who left info concerning a missing Vivian woman: please contact detectives
During the phone call on Jan. 20, 2020, Dottie expressed her sadness that she wasn’t there but promised the little girl she’d be at the birthday party on Jan. 26. She never made it.
“On Saturday she didn’t show up for her daughter’s birthday party. Which we all knew that was a big deal that she wasn’t there,” Martha said.
Martha who had already informed Caddo Sheriff’s Office of her disappearance on Thursday, Jan. 23, called back on Sunday after Dottie did not show up to the birthday party.
“On Sunday I called the detective and said she didn’t come home,” Martha said. “He said oh I knew you were just going to call and tell me she was already home, I figured she was already back.”
Dottie was officially reported missing on Monday, Jan. 27.
Learn more:Seven weeks missing; help Caddo Sheriff investigators find Vivian woman
Dottie’s husband of seven years, Kevan McCathran, told law enforcement and Dottie’s family he went to town Jan. 21, for work and when he returned Dottie was nowhere to be found.
Who said “hi?”
Read:Caddo Sheriff’s Office needs help locating missing Vivian mother
In recent months Martha has received new details in the case.
Dottie supposedly called a friend (who asked to not be named) the day she went missing.
“This information just came available to me within the last six months,” Martha said.
The friend of Dottie told Martha that on Jan. 21, 2020, at 3:45 p.m. the missing woman had called her.
During that phone call, Dottie said that she and Kevan had been fighting and she really needed to get away. She was asking for a job that her friend had been offered her to take at a restaurant.
Martha said, “she was talking to this woman on the phone, and somebody walked in on her. We don’t know who, but she had been crying when she was talking to this woman but when whoever walked in, she pulled herself together and just said hi.”
Dottie continued the conversation with the woman on the phone after the unknown individual walked in.
“Hi was the last person that saw her alive,” Martha said.
Martha said she has given this information to the detectives but no further information has been provided.
More:Caddo Parish Sherriff searches for answers in missing woman cold case
Sheriff’s Detective Matt Purgerson said in the two-year anniversary press release, “an investigation by the Caddo Sheriff’s Office have turned up no significant leads.”
Months following Dottie’s disappearance the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office performed drone searches, but deputies found nothing.
There have been no updates on the whereabouts of Dottie.
Dottie’s family has raised $30,000 for a reward and has hired a private detective.
“We are stuck we can’t lose hope, but it just looks like there is no end coming and we can’t go ahead and grieve and go through the process to move on because we still don’t know,” Martha said.
The Shreveport Times has reached out to Kevan and have not received a response.
Makenzie Boucher is a reporter with the Shreveport Times. Contact her at mboucher@gannett.com.
