Winnipeg mom desperate to find missing daughter

A Winnipeg woman is asking for help to find her daughter.

Karen Neumann's daughter, Chantelle, hasn't been heard from since June 18. And she fears the worst, after what the 27-year-old told her earlier this year.

Neumann said Chantelle has been struggling with drug addiction and it drove a wedge between them.

"I found meth needles before when she was here," she said, her voice breaking. "And I was just crabbing right up on her. I just could not believe what I saw. She was just pin-holed with needles with the meth."

She said her daughter was not always this troubled.

"Chantelle is a very loving person," she said. "She has two beautiful children."

But Neumann said when her daughter moved to the Spence neighbourhood in 2011 things changed.

"That was the end of it," she said. "She fell into the bad part of town."

Neumann said Chantelle lost weight, lost her children, and lost control over her life.

She ended up briefly in hospital last December, then showed up at her mother's home in January.

​Neumann said that's when things took a turn for the worse, and her daughter feared for her life from people involved in the drug trade.

"When she stayed with me here for that week it was very, very scary," she said. "We had to have knives lined up at the door."

It was then that Chantelle told her mother she had been held captive and assaulted over the last several years.

"She's been locked in rooms, that she's been you know shoved with needles with meth," Neumann said.

Soon after that last visit, Chantelle returned to the streets, but she would still check in with her parents sporadically by phone. Neumann said the last conversation she had with her daughter was Mother's Day. Chantelle spoke with her father, Robert Klarholz, June 18. Neumann said Chantelle specifically asked her father to call her on her birthday, July 3.

"Chantelle mentioned to her Dad, 'Can you please call me on my birthday? Don't forget about me,'" Neumann said. "So that's what he tried to do. [But there was] no sign of her whatsoever."

Winnipeg Police confirmed Friday they are investigating Chantelle Neumann's disappearance.

Karen said she's appealing to anyone with information about her daughter to come forward.

"We want her alive but hopefully she's out there," she said. "If anybody recognizes her, and hopefully they do, then
call missing persons and give us some news."

Late update: Mother gets word after CBC story

A friend of Chantelle's saw CBC's story and persuaded Chantelle to call her mother.

Karen Neumann told CBC Friday evening that Chantelle is alive but is living on the streets and still addicted to meth.

Chantelle wouldn't tell her where she was, except to say she was somewhere downtown, and was kicked out of the house she was living in three weeks ago.

Karen Neumann said she fears her daughter may die if there isn't an intervention.