Family reaches out for help in finding mother

FERNLEY - By all accounts, Brenda Scott of Fernley is a devoted mother and doting grandmother. Her whole life has been dedicated to her three grown daughters and teenage son.

She is anxiously awaiting the August birth of her third grandchild.

On Thursday, Scott, 44, was preparing for her son's eighth-grade graduation. She'd talked to her married daughter Desiree Veloz the previous evening about coming over before the ceremony to celebrate this milestone in Nick's life. She said she would spend Thursday afternoon preparing for the family gathering.

So when Scott, 44, didn't arrive home in time to take 14-year-old Nick to the graduation, her children knew something was wrong.

"She lives and breathes for my brother and us and she would have been at his graduation," Veloz said.

Veloz rushed from Reno to be with Nick, praying when she got there she'd find her mother's car in the drive of her Hastings Way home.

Instead, she found Nick home alone.

Scott's clothes were still there, as was her makeup and medication for a back injury. The outfit she'd picked to wear for the graduation was still hanging in the bathroom. A graduation gift for her youngest child and only son were still on her bed.

Nick said he'd last seen his mother Thursday morning at 6:30 a.m. when he left the Donner Springs subdivision to catch the school bus.

No one from the family - not even Nick - attended the Fernley Intermediate graduation that night. By 10 p.m. a panicked Veloz contacted police.

The deputy asked "general information," questions, Veloz said Tuesday. "He'd just figured she would eventually be home."

But Brenda Scott never came home.

Her disappearance is baffling.

"There's too many things that say she wouldn't just leave," Veloz, 22, said. "She'd just planted trees in her yard and put a fence up. She has two grandchildren and another on the way. Something is wrong. Everything says that she was coming home that night."

With nothing to do but wonder and worry, Veloz has spent her time investigating her mother's disappearance. She checked Scott's club card at the Fernley Scolari's thinking perhaps she'd made it there on Thursday to pick up a meat and cheese tray for the party. The card was last used the day before her disappearance.

There's been no activity on her checking or credit accounts. The last money Scott withdrew from her bank was $65 on Wednesday. Lyon County sheriff's investigator Rob Hall, who is actively investigating the case, said it's highly suspicious.

"It doesn't seem right," he said. "Her clothes were set out, there was a gift sitting there, she and her vehicle are missing."

Scott didn't drink, didn't gamble, didn't date and didn't have Internet access, Veloz said. "My mom's been single with us for 20 years. Her whole life is her kids," she said.

Nick has gone to stay with his other sister in Round Mountain, where he and his mother had lived before moving to Fernley a year ago.

Veloz has enlisted the help of her co-workers at Olsen and Associates Public Relations to get her mother's information out.

The siblings will tell their story to whomever will listen at a press conference today in Reno - all with one goal in mind.

"We love her and we want her to come home," Veloz said, dissolving into tears.

Contact F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.