Mother of 3 goes missing on trip to visit family in Alabama

A mother of three from Kansas has now been missing for a week after leaving on a trip to visit family in Alabama.

Marilane Carter, 36, left her home in Overland Park, Kansas, just outside Kansas City, on the night of Saturday, Aug. 1, according to police. She was last seen in surveillance footage checking into a hotel in West Plains, Missouri, the following morning.

Law enforcement said Carter last spoke to family on that Sunday near Memphis, Tennessee, before her phone went dead. Police confirmed her cellphone last pinged in that area.

Her husband, Adam Carter, told Kansas City ABC affiliate that his wife spent about three hours at the Missouri hotel before leaving and was speaking to her when her phone died. She spoke to her mother minutes later and her phone died again.

The Overland Park police said she "made concerning statements to her family and has not been heard from since later Sunday, August 2nd."

Authorities did not specify what was said.

"She was seeking some mental health care and she didn't want to go to any place in Kansas City, but she wanted to go to a place she was familiar with," Adam Carter, who works as a pastor in Kansas, told KMBC on Saturday.

Marilane Carter's mother lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and she was also going to see her newborn niece.

Carter said the family has been searching in the area of the Interstate 55 bridge over the Mississippi River in Memphis where the cellphone last pinged her location. She has not used her phone or credit card since speaking to her husband and mother on Sunday evening.

"We are devastated because she has three children and they cry every night," Marlene Mesler, Marilane's mother, told Birmingham ABC affiliate WBMA. "They are asking for their mommy. Her husband loves her so much."

Police said she was driving a gray 2011 GMC Acadia with the Kansas license plate, 194 LFY.

Carter is about 5-foot-8 and 130 pounds with long brown hair and green eyes. Police said she was last seen wearing a green T-shirt and black yoga pants.

"She's a loving mother, loving wife. We have a great relationship. I miss her terribly. I want her home. I want her home with our kids," Adam Carter said.

ABC News' Erin Calabrese and Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.