Angela Martin — a Chicago-born three-time American Idol, hopeful who wowed all four judges with her rendition of Mary J. Blige’s “Just Fine” in the Season 9 auditions — continues to search for her missing mother, who was last seen leaving a family dinner on Christmas Day.
Viola Martin vanished on the way to visit a daughter just hours after enjoying the holidays with her children. Her car was later found parked in a forest reserve and she hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
“We haven’t heard anything yet,” a heartbroken Angela tells PEOPLE. “The detectives have been calling my sisters and myself, and just keeping us informed. They say they are still just looking and asking us more questions, if we know anything but her friends are calling us, so it’s hard.”
“We haven’t stopped looking. We’ve been out in the cold, and before I left to go to Hollywood, we were looking. I think what hurts us the most was they found her car but they didn’t find her. It was abandoned in a forest preserve in the dark. We just want to know, what were you doing over there?” she adds.
Angela is a 28-year-old single mom of a special needs daughter. She first auditioned for the nation’s most popular TV talent show in 2007, but was eliminated after her father was murdered. In 2008, Martin made it to the Top 50, but was forced to leave the competition due to a court date for a traffic ticket.
This year she made it to Hollywood with a unanimous vote from the judges.
Angela describes her mom as 5-ft. tall, about 165 lbs., light-skinned and with blond and brown hair. “My mom’s a very outgoing person,” she says. “She loves people, period, and she loves kids. When people see her, they just need to say, ‘You need to call your kids,’ and she would probably break down and you will know it’s her right off the bat.”