TULSA, Okla. — The family of Terri Schlatter said she dealt with a lot in her young life.
She was a young mother who got involved early on in some legal trouble with her husband, Darrell Schlatter.
Both were charged with federal bank fraud, with Terri later becoming a witness for the state against Darrell.
2 News spoke with Terri’s sister, Kerri Yingst, about the circumstances leading up to the day that Terri and her one-year-old son, Nathan, went missing.
“She was supposed to go to state’s witness and show up for court but she and Darrell, her husband or estranged husband, took the child to a babysitter that morning so they could go to court and then Darrell returned in the afternoon to pick Nathan up and tell the babysitter we no longer need your services,” said Kerri Yingst. “That’s the last anybody’s seen that day or heard from her or Nathan. ‘I really believe in my heart of hearts that he did something to her and the child. He worked at a large ranch, and he could have hid a body anywhere,” said Yingst.
Yingst said that the couple had a volatile relationship and that she constantly was in fear of him.
At this time, Darrell Schlatter is the only person of interest in the disappearance of Terri and Nathan, but the family was left without answers when Darrell decided to take his own life. Investigators said he had hanged himself in the Wagoner County jail in 1993.
Darrell’s death took away any hope of finding Terri and Nathan and left the family heartbroken.
“It’s the unknown that’s difficult because you don’t have closure and you can’t wrap your head around it, and so for me no matter what, I lost her and so I have to grieve and I have to go through that grieving process,” said Yingst.
To keep their story alive, the family created a Facebook page called “Schlatter and Child Nathan Missing and Endangered,” hoping it might spur someone’s memory so they can finally bring Terri and Nathan home.
If you have any information about this case, you are asked to contact the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation or the Wagoner County Sheriff's Office.
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