Virginia Woman And Her Two Kids Still Missing After A Date

The last time Kevin Lamping talked with his son, Lamping was on a Navy ship off the Florida coast and the 7-year-old was home watching a movie with his mom and baby sister in Virginia Beach.

Lamping said he heard his ex-wife, Monica Lamping, in the background telling their son to turn down the volume so they could hear each other.

At the end of the conversation, Lamping told Kai: “OK, Buddy, I’ll see you in a week.” That was on Saturday.

He hasn’t heard from his son or ex-wife since then.

Monica Lamping’s family reported her missing Sunday morning, and a search for the 29-year-old and her two children began shortly after a fire at her house. Police consider the incident “a missing/endangered persons case under suspicious circumstances” because of the time that has passed since they were last seen.

On Tuesday, police announced that the license plate registered to Monica Lamping’s 2002 Jeep Cherokee was captured on camera as it passed through the Downtown Tunnel. Her Jeep has not been located and it wasn’t clear whether it was her vehicle going through the tunnel. Police would not say which direction the vehicle was traveling or what time it occurred.

Kevin Lamping said he was told it went through the tunnel around 2 a.m. Sunday and was headed west, toward Portsmouth.

Lamping’s current wife, Moira, called him Sunday after firefighters came to their home with news that the house Monica Lamping had been renting on Sullivan Boulevard in Virginia Beach had caught fire early that morning.

The fire was reported about 3:30 a.m. When firefighters arrived, flames were shooting through the roof of the two-story house near Bayside High School.

The cause has not been determined. Investigators were looking into the possibility that a space heater started the blaze, but “it’s not definitive,” Fire Department spokesman Art Kohn said Tuesday.

A dog and a cat were found dead, but two cats survived. Monica Lamping, Kai, and his 9-month-old half sister, Oria, were nowhere to be found.

Kevin Lamping immediately called his ex-wife’s cellphone when he heard what happened.

“It went straight to voicemail and it’s been going to voicemail since then,” he said.

While it is not unusual for Monica Lamping to forget to charge her cellphone, it is very unusual for her not to stay in touch with her family, Kevin Lamping said.

“She talked to them almost daily,” he said. She also would not have left pets behind, he said.

The last time a neighbor saw Lamping was Thursday or Friday, when she said she saw Lamping putting a big plastic bag of things in the back of her Jeep.

“She only had one bag, but it was huge.”

Lamping’s roommate moved in about two months ago and was the owner of the dog, the neighbor said. She saw the roommate at the house Sunday.

According to Monica Lamping’s best friend, Anne Shell, Lamping went on a date Saturday afternoon with a man she had met recently at a gas station. Shell cared for her friend’s children while she went with her date to get lunch at a Chipotle restaurant. Monica Lamping arrived at Shell’s house around 5 p.m. to pick them up and hung out there for about a half-hour, Shell said.

Shell and Lamping exchanged text messages that night, with the last one being sent by the missing woman about 10:30 p.m., Shell said. Lamping texted that “Chad” was a mechanic and had agreed to fix her car, Shell said, adding that she assumed Chad was the name of the man she had gone out with.

Lamping asked Shell if she could drive her to Chad’s house in the morning to pick the car up. In their last text exchange, Shell asked Lamping if she thought it would be ready in the morning and her friend replied, “Yup, I think so.”

Police said they are looking for a man named Chad, but have no details about his appearance or where he lives.