The Disappearance of Diana Avera

22 year old Diana Avera was last seen in Mount Vernon, Alabama in August of 1982. She disappeared after escaping from the hospital where she was receiving treatment, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

Background

Diana Avera was born on May 15, 1960. She suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, and was involuntarily committed to a Searcy Hospital a few months before her disappearance.

Disappearance

Diana Avera was arrested for disorderly conduct on May 21, 1982, and taken to Searcy Hospital in Mount Vernon, Alabama, against her will.

Electroconvulsive treatments, or ECT, were one of the treatments Avera got while she was in the hospital. She has paranoid schizophrenia. She was “like a zombie,” barely able to speak or walk, when her family went to see her in the hospital.

Avera got away from the hospital sometime in August 1982. Since then, no one has seen or heard from her.

People thought that the hospital or police had reported her missing in 1982, but her family just recently learned that this was not true. It was officially reported that she was missing in August 2020 after hearing that.

DNA samples from her family have been sent in, and her case has been added to NamUS.

Whereabouts

The location of Diana Leigh Avera, as well as the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, remains unknown. Her case is classified as endangered missing and remains unsolved.