Former Mainer missing in Texas Woman once lived in Cape Elizabeth

PORTLAND – A well-known former Cape Elizabeth resident is missing in Texas, where she was visiting her son and daughter.

Tot Tran Harriman, 57, who raised her children in Cape Elizabeth and was active in the community, has not been seen since July 12. That’s when she left her son’s home in a Houston suburb to look for property between Houston and Corpus Christi, about four hours to the southwest.

Harriman has lived in Florida since 1995 and wanted to move to Texas, where two of her three children live.

Police in League City, the Houston suburb where Harriman was visiting her son, have received hundreds of phone calls from people who said they had seen Harriman’s car with its distinctive “TOTSY” license plates. But so far the leads have been only marginally helpful.

“We just don’t know a lot,” said Detective Richard Rennison. “For every theory I can think of, I can think of two good reasons that didn’t happen.”

Harriman escaped from Saigon during the Vietnam War only hours before it fell to the North Vietnamese. While living in Maine she was active at Cheverus High School when her son Chien Si Harriman attended.

He graduated in the mid-1990s and now lives in California.

She was the owner of Thu Hong, a Vietnamese restaurant, and was an interpreter for Vietnamese patients at a clinic in Maine Medical Center. On her own she often helped the patients find housing and jobs.

Harriman’s daughter, Thu Hong Harriman Peck, said the family knows she didn’t “just decide to go off.”

“She wouldn’t do that. My brothers and I believe there was some sort of foul play involved,” Peck said. “Even if she had amnesia, with all the publicity we’ve had down here, somebody would have brought her home by now.”