ATLANTA — It's been more than one week and a half since 46-year-old Lilliam Max was last seen.
Her loved ones say she left Birmingham on a Greyhound bus headed for Atlanta but, as of Friday, investigators are not sure where she got off.
Her friend of nine years, Cristobal Contreras, said he last saw Max on May 1 when she asked to borrow money for her upcoming quick trip to Atlanta. He gave her $500.
Contreras said that the next morning, Max, who lives in Cullman, Alabama, had a friend drive her to the Greyhound station in Birmingham.
Cullman Police said her bus was delayed and left the station around 10 p.m. It should have arrived in Atlanta around 1 a.m. on May 3.
"Monday went by and I was not worried," he said. "Tuesday went by and I was not worried. It wasn't until Wednesday that I tried to make contact and was not able to that I started to get worried."
Contreras said Max has been a legal resident in the United States for over a decade and was heading to Georgia for an immigration hearing in the hopes of getting citizenship.
No one knows if she got off the bus or if she made it to that meeting.
"She's from Mexican origin. She is a legal, permanent resident," he said. "The reason she was having an immigration hearing is that a few years back, apparently, she requested citizenship, and her application was denied on account of some debts with some hospitals."
He said that a judge had told her that she had to take care of those debts and she'd then have a follow-up hearing.
"This was her follow-up hearing," he said.
Friends and investigators have had trouble confirming with the court system whether she made it to her meeting and with Greyhound on whether she did end up getting off that bus.
Cullman Police Lieutenant Jody Martin, who is investigating this case, said he was able to get video evidence of Max boarding the bus in Birmingham but has not heard back on whether she got off in Atlanta when the bus arrived.
"We lost contact as far as her phone about the time she got to the Birmingham bus terminal," Lt. Martin said. "Not sure if it was turned off, it went dead, or what happened."
Contreras traveled to Atlanta one week after she boarded the bus on May 9. He said he spoke with a parking lot attendant outside of the Greyhound station who confirmed Max got off the bus on Monday morning.
He also traveled to Plaza Fiesta where he hung up flyers and spoke to several people. Plaza Fiesta is where taxi driver, mother-of-two Rossana Delgado was last seen exactly one month ago.
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"We had two vendors that recognized her and think she was there on Tuesday morning," Contreras said. "My theory is that she did go to her hearing, everything went well and she spent the night over there, went to Plaza Fiesta to get some knick-knacks and stuff before going back to Alabama and something happened afterwards and didn't make it back."
Max was reported missing to the Cullman Police Department on May 7 but Lt. Martin said a lot of her concerned customers reached out to police days before when she didn't show up to several of her appointments.
"It was her business," he said. "As far as we know, all of her stuff is still there, that's why it's odd she hasn't come back. It's not like she packed up to move off somewhere."
11Alive was able to put Lt. Martin in touch with the Atlanta Police Department's missing persons unit. Friends are hopeful this could bring forth new leads.
"Luckily, our agency does not have many missing persons [cases]," he said. "We're a smaller agency; so, I haven't had to work that many. Coordinating sometimes with other agencies, they're all busy. Atlanta PD is a large agency and now hopefully they're going to help us."
Max is 5 feet 4 inches tall, about 180 pounds, and speaks English but Spanish is her native language. She's single and has no kids and owns a barbershop in Cullman.
"She was really liked by the community, she was a barber, beautician, she actually cut the hair of several of our law enforcement officers," said Lt. Martin. "Everyone's been pretty worried about her because she hasn't been back to her appointments."
Lt. Martin added that this is still a missing person case and not a criminal investigation.
"She voluntarily went to the bus station, got on the bus, made the appointment herself and that's all we know," he said.
"She's very street smart," added Contreras. "She knows how to get around but we don't know what might've happened."
If you have any information pertaining to this case, call the Cullman Police Department at 256-734-1434.