Janette Kroeger’s 21-year-old daughter, Portia Metzler, is missing in Costa Rica.

“She was due back Friday night, but she didn’t make her flight she didn’t show up at the airport. We got an e-mail from her on Oct. 10 and that’s the last we heard from her,” said Kroeger, who lives with her husband, Mel, and four of Portia’s five brothers and half-brothers in North Lawrence.

Portia Metzler’s father, Roger Metzler, lives in Houston. He received an e-mail from his daughter Oct. 12 but has not heard from her since.

“She’d been going to school part-time in Houston and wanted to take some time off, so she and some friends went to Costa Rica,” Janette Kroeger said.

“The last we heard from her, she said her friends were headed back, but she you know how 21-year-olds are decided to stay a little longer. She wanted to go hiking and backpacking. She said she was fine.”

Kroeger, 43, said her daughter did not take her cell phone to Costa Rica.

“She’d been having trouble with it it wasn’t working, so she’d turned it in,” she said.

Kroeger said she and her husband had contacted an attorney in San Jose, Costa Rica, who had talked with law enforcement officials.

“He’s going to file a formal missing report with them (Tuesday) morning,” Mel Kroeger said. “He’s also made contact with the American Embassy and the State Department.”

Portia Metzler, daughter of Janette Kroeger of Lawrence, is missing in Costa Rica. Her parents last heard from her more than two weeks ago.

The lawyer, Carlos Alberto Echeverr was referred to the Kroegers by Robert McColl, chairman of the geography department at Kansas University. McColl owns a condominium in Costa Rica.

Mel Kroeger, 46, is a computer technician with the KU geography department. Janette Kroeger is a crossing guard at Pinckney and Schwegler schools.

“We’ve only known about this since Sunday, when Portia’s stepmom called to ask if we’d heard anything because her flight had come in and she wasn’t on it,” Mel Kroeger said.

“Everything has just snowballed from there,” he said, noting that a call to Portia Metzler’s credit-card company revealed that she last used her card at 3:40 p.m. Oct. 10 en route to Limon, Costa Rica.

Martin Matamoros, legal counsel for the OIJ the Costa Rican equivalent of the FBI said the agency’s office in the capital had no information on Portia Metzler.

In May 2001, Shannon Martin, a 23-year-old KU senior from Topeka, was stabbed to death in Golfito, Costa Rica, as she walked home from a nightclub.

Golfito and Limon are port cities on Costa Rica’s southern and northern coasts, respectively.