Authorities search for Saint-Louis ballet dancer missing after finding car in park

ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Authorities are looking for a missing ballet dancer after finding her car in a lake in northeastern Missouri. A state park ranger found Raffaella Stroik's vehicle in a trendy parking lot Monday in Mark Twain National Park, authorities said.

A Missouri police officer checked the scene the next morning and found that the vehicle was still there, with no trace of Stroik, a 23-year-old dancer of the St. Louis Ballet Company. Stroik, who joined the ballet last year, was last seen Monday morning at a Whole Foods in the suburbs of St. Louis.

According to the authorities, she wore tennis shows, a long pink scarf, an olive green jacket and navy blue trousers with white zippers on the sides. She was driving a 2012 black Volkswagen Jetta with license plates from Indiana, said the Missouri State Highway Highway Patrol.

"We are asking people to pray and help our darling daughter as quickly as possible," said his father, Duncan Stroik, said KMOV, an affiliate of CBS St. Louis.

Stroik weighs about 5 feet 7 inches and weighs 115 pounds. She has brown eyes and hair that she normally wears in a ponytail. Her profile on the ballet website indicates that she comes from South Bend, in Indiana.