SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio mother has been missing for five days now and her family is beginning to panic.
Elizabeth Contreras's photo has been posted all over town and all over the internet but no one has seen her.
The missing woman turned 39 on Sunday.
The mystery and endless unanswered questions are making life unbearable for Lillian Sierra.
"It's very hard. She's our sister. She's a mother. It's hard not having her here and not knowing what happened to her," Sierra said, holding back tears.
Contreras's family says she was headed to work at Mission Trail Baptist Hospital around 10:30 Wednesday night to get her work schedule, but she never made it there, or back home. They said all she took with her was her purse.
Sierra and other family members tried to call her many times the night she disappeared.
"The first day she went missing, her cellphone would ring. If you tried to call it today, it's dead," Sierra said.
Sierra said it is extremely out of the ordinary for her sister not to be in constant contact with her family members.
"It's not like her to leave. She has a daughter and she would never leave her. Her daughter, that's her world," she said.
Her 6-year-old daughter has been having trouble coping too.
"She asks for her mother. She wants her to come home," Sierra said.
Plus, a discovery Friday made the disappearance seem even more suspicious.
"Thankfully somebody driving to work Friday morning saw that a car was parked on the side of I-37 a few exits past City Base, probably Exit 130 and it was coming inbound towards San Antonio. They said they saw a similar car described on Facebook. We found her purse and wallet inside," Sierra explained.
Police are holding onto those items as part of the investigation. As for Sierra, she's racking her brain about what stops her sister may have made along the way that night.
"I know the car was low on gas so she did state she was going to put gas. So that's why we don't know what happened. Did something happen at a gas station?" she said.
The entire family has been scouring the city, hanging flyers with Contreras' picture on them, hoping someone will recognize her.
"Please call. Call the numbers on the flyers, call the police. If they do see her, don’t let her out of your sight until someone has made contact with her," Sierra begged of the public.
She was last seen she was wearing black yoga pants, a black V-neck shirt, and flip flops. People who believe they may have seen her are asked to call San Antonio police at 210-207-7660.