A frantic hunt is underway in the United States for an Australian actress and singer who disappeared after going on a date planned online.
Laura McCulloch, 37, was last seen at a fancy Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles and was scheduled to meet someone she met via ‘Bumble or Tinder’ on Friday, August 12.
Since then, the ‘bubbly and vivacious’ Victorian lady has skipped work, yoga class, and other usual ‘commitments,’ and she has even removed her dating profiles.
Her friends and relatives are conducting their own missing person search, saying that the LAPD had not yet classified her case as a missing person as of Tuesday night.
‘We have had nothing but pushback and dismissal from the police,’ her sister Clare McCulloch claimed in a social media post.
Frustrated at the lack of help from LA investigators the family has started a GoFundMe page to help pay for a private detective, organised by her cousin Merrie McCulloch.
‘Unfortunately, efforts to involve authorities including local law enforcement and the Australian Embassy have also been of no use, and so we turn to our community for support,’ Merrie McCulloch wrote.
‘As time is crucial in all missing persons cases, a private investigator has been hired to assist us to swiftly piece together the puzzle of Laura’s whereabouts.’
She said Laura’s behaviour in missing work and her normal routines was ‘very out of character’.
Ms McCulloch’s friends turned their hunt to social media, creating a series of urgent missing person posters with images of her and information about her last known whereabouts.
According to one post, ‘she was last heard from before going on a Bumble or Tinder meet up.’
Before the date, Ms McCulloch was dressed in “a blue blouse, red skirt, and tan shoes.”
The family also claims that the Santa Monica restaurant where she had planned to meet her date, Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ, refused to share any surveillance video without a police order.
Clare McCulloch, her frightened sister, reposted their postings, saying, ‘If you are in L.A or know anyone in L.A please share this far and wide across all of your networks!’
‘Please, please, please help us find my sister!’
Late Tuesday night, she tweeted, ‘Keep praying those great big f***ing prayers for my sister’s safe return.’
She also claimed that her sister’s dating profile had been erased and that her communications could not be recovered, according to 9News.
Clare McCulloch said is ‘absolutely beside myself’ because her sister isn’t answering her phone.
‘It’s a total nightmare, it’s so hard to not think the absolute worst.’
According to a California Department of Justice website ‘there is no waiting period’ for someone to be formally considered missing.
‘All California police and sheriffs’ departments must accept any report, including a report by telephone, of a missing person, including runaways, without delay and will give priority to the handling of the report,’ the website says.
Laura McCulloch moved to LA after being based in New York in 2021 where she worked as an actor, singer, voice-over artist, writer and producer.
In 2022, her single screen credit is an independent short film titled ‘Covid Support Group,’ directed by American filmmaker Abigail Bogle.
She performed Madame Le Farge in an American theatrical adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities at Bob Jones University in South Carolina in March 2021.
In between roles, she has also worked as a nanny.
She had a supporting part in a cinematic adaptation of the famous ballet The Nutcracker in 2009, and she starred in an Australian short film called The Black Sheep in 2010.