Woman's Disappearance Prompts More Security

RALEIGH, N.C. — Security has been tightened at a downtown parking garage where a missing Wendell woman's passcard was used before she disappeared this week.

Cynthia Moreland, 48, has been missing since Tuesday morning. Her abandoned Toyota Camry was found Wednesday morning in southeast Raleigh, in a neighborhood her family said she had no reason to visit.

Moreland's access card to a parking garage on Wilmington Street was used at 6:40 a.m. Tuesday, but she never reported to work at Progress Energy. The company's headquarters is above the parking garage.

Residents on Malta Avenue, near the intersection of Rock Quarry Road and Martin Luther King Boulevard, said Moreland's car had been parked in the neighborhood since at least Tuesday afternoon.

Police released a surveillance video taken Tuesday at a Raleigh-area store that shows a man investigators believe has information about Moreland's disappearance. Police have declined to identify the store.

The man is described as a black male between 25 and 35 years of age who is between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall and about 185 pounds. The man has a dark complexion and a noticeable scar near his mouth, police said. When last seen, the man was wearing dark sunglasses and was dressed in a multicolored striped shirt, stonewashed jean shorts and white sneakers with no shoelaces. He also had dreadlocks that were gathered into a light-colored bandanna.

Progress Energy is now offering a 24-hour escort service to walk employees to their cars when they arrive to work early or leave late, spokesman Mike Hughes said.

"We are looking at, along with Raleigh police, the city of Raleigh and McLaurin (Parking, which operates the garage), how we can enhance safety and security at that parking deck," Hughes said.

Anyone with information about Moreland's whereabouts is asked to call the Raleigh Police Department's Detective Division at 919-890-3555.