Australian woman sent 'weird' text to friend before vanishing in Mexico
An Australian woman who vanished in Mexico sent a friend a strange text message before she went missing, telling her to remember a man's name – "just in case".
Queenslander Tahnee Shanks, 32, was last seen at the start of May alongside her husband Jorge Luis Aguirre Astudillo and daughter, Adelynn.
The alarm was raised after the couple's two-year-old daughter was found wandering around by herself in Cancun.
Mexican authorities raised alerts for both Ms Shanks and Mr Astudillo, and her brother has even offered a generous reward for information leading to her safe return.
Dan Shanks told the Daily Mercury that local authorities said he would be inundated with tips after posting the reward of $1 million pesos (A$70,000), however, he hasn't received any information regarding the whereabouts of his sister.
In a message sent to a friend before she went missing, Ms Shanks advised her friend to remember her husband's name.
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“I know this is gunna sound weird but keep (his) name. Jorge Luis Aguirre Astudillo! Just in case anything happens to me they can go after him,” the message said, according to the Daily Mercury.
“Not that anything will! But I just want to keep that as a backup.”
Mr Shanks previously told the Nine Network Mr Astudillo had been seen dropping off the couple's daughter, Adelynn, near a church before fleeing the scene.
"We've got bugger all information at the moment, but what we do know is her partner is the one who has dumped Adelynn outside the church," he said earlier in May.
"We've got three eyewitnesses telling us that, verifying it was him, and Tahnee's the one missing.
"And he's on the run, as far as we're concerned. So, it's... yeah... devastating."
Ms Shanks was last seen at a police checkpoint in a car with her husband and Adelynn driving towards Yucatán, the Daily Mercury reported.
At some point on the highway the vehicle turned around and hours later, the two-year-old child was found at the church in Cancun.
“There’s an eight-hour period from them going through that toll and Adelynn being dropped off in Cancun at that church,” Mr Shanks said.
“Then her phone stopped pinging pretty soon after that. It might have been a couple of hours I understand.”
A GoFundMe page set up by a friend of Ms Shanks is raising money to help the family search for her.
In an update on the fundraiser, Ms Shanks's family said Adelynn was safely back in Australia "adjusting as well as she can do", given the circumstances.
"Addy needs her mother, and we need our family to be whole again," the Shanks family said.
"I can't begin to explain how difficult this has been on the family, but because of all of you we don't feel like we are going through this alone."
With AAP
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