ASHTABULA, Ohio (WJW) – It’s been 26 years since family and friends last spoke to Anna Zirkle.

The young mother of two was reported missing from her Columbus home on Feb. 1, 1997.

“It’s devastating,” said Juanita Chapman, Zirkle’s foster mother.  “It’s devastating because we still don’t know anything.”

Zirkle had lived in Warren and Ashtabula.

“She had very close ties to both Warren and Ashtabula,” said Janet Montoya, a close friend of Zirkle’s. “She was so loving, so nurturing and such a devoted mom that she would never walk out on her kids.”

In 2011, the U.S. Marshals Service and other law enforcement agencies searched an area off of Old Plank Rd. in Orwell, in Ashtabula County, for Zirkle’s remains. Nothing was found. 

“We are not giving up,” Montoya said. “The reason I can’t give up hope, I am a cancer survivor, and I didn’t give up hope then and I don’t plan to give up hope now. God gave me a second opportunity to live, and I would like to afford that to Anna Zirkle and her family, a second opportunity to find out if she is alive and if she is alive how do we bring her home and if she is not, what happened and still bring her home.

Anyone with information on Anna Zirkle’s disappearance is asked to call Columbus police detectives or the U.S. Marshalls Service.