Missing Moms: 'I Won't Give Up on You Ma,' Says Son of Woman Who Took Out Trash and Disappeared

"Without her, there is a big piece of the family gone," April Jean Bailey's sister says in this week's issue of PEOPLE, which explores eight unsolved cases of missing moms

April Jean Bailey, left, with her son Isiah Bugg.

April Jean Bailey was not dressed for a long winter's night.

Wearing only her slippers, black sweatpants and a jacket with a fur-lined hood, the 37-year-old mother of three stepped outside of her basement apartment in Nashua, N.H., to take out the trash on the evening of Jan. 15, 2020 — and disappeared.

Police say she was not living with her children at the time, and her cell phone, purse and other personal effects were left behind.

Authorities have not used the term "foul play" to describe what happened to her, Nashua police Det. Lt. Patrick Hannon tells PEOPLE, "just because we don't know the exact circumstances there, whether she got into a car willingly, or whether there was no car at all and she walked off."

The vanishing has left Bailey's family desperate for answers and hopeful for any clues.

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"She had such a good heart, and her children are her world," Bailey's twin sister Nicole tells PEOPLE in this week's cover story devoted to the unexplained cases of eight missing moms across the country.

For more information about April Jean Bailey and other missing mom cases, subscribe now to PEOPLE or pick up this week's issue, on newsstands Friday.

"Our family always sticks together, and without her, there is a big piece of the family gone," says Nicole. "We are lost. We keep hoping, we keep praying we'll find her alive."

Police are equally baffled by her case, and have uncovered nothing that tracks her whereabouts.

"All accounts that we've gotten is that she was just heading out to take some trash outside," says Hannon. "It wasn't like she was dressed, ready to go [with] purse in her hand, cell phone, things like that. Those items were left behind."

"Given the fact that there was no communication on where she might be heading, or any indication by what she was wearing that she might be leaving for an extended period of time, that has led us to tirelessly investigate this to try to figure out what exactly happened and where she might've gone afterwards."

April Jean Bailey.

In a post on his Facebook page, Bailey's son Isiah Bugg wrote: "I won't give up on you ma!"

Speaking to Boston TV station WFXT, he said, "She's the greatest mother you could ask for."

Authorities describe the missing woman as white, 5 feet, 3 inches tall and 130 lbs., with long, black hair and blue eyes and two tattoos — a butterfly on her right shoulder, and another that says "Damien" on her right ankle. They say she has additional ties to the Boston and Glens Falls, N.Y., areas.

Anyone with information on her case is asked to contact Nashua police at [phone], or the Boston office of the FBI at 857-386-2000 or tips online at tips.fbi.gov.