A Summit Hill woman hoped an act of tough love would help her 23-year-old daughter get her life back on track.

Karen Horvath, however, never expected the nightmare that unfolded after her daughter, Katrina, left home last April.

The 2020 Panther Valley High School alumna, who requires treatment for mental health issues, is now missing and considered endangered, possibly the victim of out-of-state human traffickers, her mother said Monday.

And she is desperate to find Katrina and bring her home.

Numerous social media sites and nonprofit organizations dedicated to raising awareness to missing people nationwide have put out information about Katrina.

Karen Horvath first learned that her daughter was in trouble when a Whitehall Township detective called her.

He had Katrina’s phone and wanted to make sure she would be testifying against the person who beat and hospitalized her.

The words came like gut punches for a helpless mother, who was also grappling with her husband’s terminal dementia diagnosis and working multiple jobs to keep them afloat.

Karen had no way to contact her daughter and service for Katrina’s phone, if she ever retrieved it from police, ended, she said.

Karen then tried reaching out to her daughter on Snapchat on a fluke and connected in the fall. The messages were short, unlike Katrina, and Karen wasn’t sure it was really her.

Then, in late October, Katrina initiated a video chat via Snapchat while Karen was watching her grandchildren — Katrina’s niece and newborn nephew, she said.

“She video chatted me … so I knew it was her,” Karen said. “OK, this is really her.”

She still didn’t press her for information, afraid to scare her off, and lose all contact again with her youngest child.

Before Thanksgiving, Katrina told her mom that she wants to bring her fiancé home for them to meet, but she’s having trouble with her car. Her mom told her to talk to her brother about the car.

Katrina contacted her brother Nov. 28, crying and saying she wanted to come home. A man could be heard yelling in the background telling her to give him the phone back, she said.

That was the last contact the family had with her.

Connecting with missing person groups

Karen filed multiple missing person’s reports with Summit Hill police, who are listed as the main contact for any information on the young woman’s whereabouts in all the social media posts.

A social media page, Finding Jesse Farber, was one of the first to reach out to Karen after she shared information about Katrina on her own Facebook page. The administrator wanted more information to create a flyer for Katrina and get the word out to others, she said.

“That’s when everything boomed, because then so many missing persons groups were reaching out to me,” Karen said.

Among the groups were Missing People in America, which acts as a clearinghouse for information about missing people nationwide, and The Aware Foundation, which works with families looking for loved ones and raises awareness to their missing person profiles.

“Then, I received a call from the Philadelphia FBI,” Karen said. “The agent asked me to tell her what was going on, and I did.”

A family friend also shared Katrina’s missing person flyer with a former classmate who works with a human trafficking unit in Cumberland County, and some concerning hits came back, she said.

The family also learned more about her possible whereabouts from debits on the family EZ-Pass account, putting her in New Jersey and New York, and learned about an arrest in Atlantic City.

Then, they received a letter from a towing company letter about Katrina’s car being repossessed in Miami Beach, Florida, Karen said.

She contacted police in the areas where they could place Katrina and relayed all the information they had on her whereabouts, her mental health condition and the belief she couldn’t leave where she was or who she was with. Karen also reached out to the governors in the states where her daughter was, seeking help.

‘Endangered’

Katrina’s mental health condition means she is more than a missing person, but an endangered missing person — something the family didn’t know when they first filed a missing person’s report, Karen said.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is also involved in Katrina’s case, Karen said. The FDLE houses the Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse, which accepts cases for missing persons under 26 years old and serves as central repository.

This week, another social media page, Barron Trump Fans, detailed Katrina’s case, again raising awareness to her story in hopes that tips come in that lead to her whereabouts.

“I don’t care who shares that story … Just so the word gets out there,” Karen said. “This is not political, this is personal. This is my daughter.

“This can happen to anybody,” she said, saying people think it only happens in the big cities. “No, this can happen anywhere.”

Karen, who kept everything to herself, wants to tell other parents not to blame themselves and keep looking for answers.

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Don’t be afraid of the stigma of mental illness. These are things that need to be talked about.

“When you start looking for answers, it opens a door to more information,” she said.

Karen believes her willingness to share her family’s story, brought more people to their cause and rallied the community around them.

“People are helping. People are praying. People are sharing the post,” she said. “Just sharing the post means a whole lot, because that’s how the word gets out.”