By CHERYL ROMANO/YachatsNews.com
YACHATS – A woman who spent the last year living in her car in and around Yachats abandoned the vehicle nearly three weeks ago, worrying family and friends concerned for her well being.
Ronnie Deleski, 42, was a common sight around Yachats and Waldport living in her small, blue Toyota Scion stuffed with her personal belongings.
She apparently ran out of gas April 21, left her car and belongings in front of the Yachats Cannabis Co. and told someone at the dispensary she’d be back. A security video from the cannabis store showed her walking north the next day wearing a red backpack and carrying a red sleeping bag, Lincoln County Sheriff’s Deputy Doug Honse told YachatsNews.
Her brother Ed Deleski, a realtor from San Francisco, was in the area chasing down leads this week, and handing out fliers with her picture and his contact information. He’s also filed a missing persons report with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. On Thursday he said he headed out of Lincoln County to look for his sister after receiving tips that she may be headed farther north.
“I’ve gotten quite a few calls; everyone in the Yachats-Waldport-Newport area has been supportive,” he said Monday.
A clerk at Newport Fred Meyer store told him she spotted a woman matching her description at 10 p.m. Sunday wandering around the store. But a check of the video days later showed it was someone else. Another person claimed they saw her Monday morning crossing a street in Waldport.
“She’s not well; she needs help,” Deleski told Yachats News on Monday
By Thursday, Deleski said there had been no new sitings all week.
“It’s really odd, no one appears to have seen her,” he said. “I’ve exhausted all avenues in Newport.”
Honse said the sheriff’s department put out a “be on the lookout” bulletin for Ronnie Deleski to nearby police agencies and put the missing persons report into a statewide database. If a police officer has contact with her and checks identification, the missing persons report will come up and letting her know her family is concerned.
“But we can’t take her in against her will, unless she is a danger to herself or someone else,” Honse said.
Ed Deleski said his sister was diagnosed several years ago with a mental health disorder, and became more volatile and erratic following the death of their mother in 2018.
“She would blow up, yell and scream” over small incidents, he said. “She’s very sweet until she’s not very sweet; then she’d be like a different person.”
Pastor Bob Barrett of Yachats Community Presbyterian Church, who is active with the homeless community, said Ronnie Deleski would come to the food pantry at the church once or twice a week.
“She’s a vegan, so we started getting some vegan foods specifically for her, and some warm blankets,” he said. The church offered to pay the registration fee on her car so she wouldn’t get ticketed, but Deleski declined. On “a couple of cold nights,” she also declined help to get into a motel, Barrett said.
“She’s pretty private and fiercely independent,” Barrett said.
Ed Deleski said prior to their mother’s death Ronnie Deleski had her own apartment in Phoenix and was a copywriter for PetSmart. Years before, she had earned two master’s degrees —one in linguistics, one in German — at Arizona State University. After the mother’s death Ronnie Deleski moved in with her father in Phoenix, then stayed with her brother at his San Francisco home for periods of time.
After that, Ronnie Deleski alternated living in California with trips to Oregon and Arizona.
“The timeline is kind of a blur,” Ed Deleski said from his car, while tracking reports of his sister.
At one point a few years back, “She called me crying about somebody implanting things into her to kill her,” he said. He drove Ronnie to a hospital, where she had a psychiatric evaluation “and convinced (medical personnel) that she could make her own choices,” Ed Deleski said.
For a few years, Ed Deleski could track his sister’s location and phone activity through a cellphone account he maintained. “All of a sudden, the texts and calls just stopped,” he said.
Deleski asked the sheriff’s office to do a welfare check on his sister and last week a deputy called Deleski to report her car was parked in front of the dispensary. The next day, Deleski filed a missing person report, caught a flight to Oregon and started his search.
“We have homeless people everywhere in San Francisco; there’s an encampment on the street adjacent to my home,” Deleski said. “You become desensitized to it; you don’t think they’re human after a while.
“If she wants to live her life in her car, then so be it. I just want her to get help. I’ll pay for it, be there with her; all our family and friends would,” Deleski said.
He’s even consulted an attorney to see if he might get custody of Ronnie.
“There’s no way unless someone witnesses her hurting someone or herself, and a psychiatrist says she can’t make her own decisions,” he said.
So Deleski drives between Florence and Lincoln City, chasing leads and combing areas where homeless people camp.
“I just want to find my sister,” he said.
- Ed Deleski can be reached at 415-350-9083 or at edeleski@gmail.com.
- Cheryl Romano is a Yachats freelance reporter who contributes regularly to YachatsNews.com. She can be reached at Wordsell@gmail.com