A Silver Alert is active for a 75-year-old Cleveland County woman who vanished after leaving the parking lot of Two Kings Casino in Kings Mountain, and investigators say they do not even know what time she drove away. Christa Cooley was last seen leaving the casino along Kings Mountain Boulevard, and authorities believe she may be suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's, though they have released no further details about when she was last spotted.
The North Carolina Center for Missing Persons issued the alert for Cooley, describing her as having blonde hair, a tattoo on one of her shoulders, and last seen wearing a yellow shirt with blue jeans and slides, according to Queen City News. She is believed to have dementia or Alzheimer's, per the state agency's assessment. Cooley is driving a silver 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee with a distinctive marker: a German flag bumper sticker affixed to the back of the vehicle.
Casino Parking Lot Is Last Known Location
Two Kings Casino, where Cooley was last seen, sits at 538 Kings Mountain Boulevard right off Interstate 85's Exit 5, roughly 35 miles west of Charlotte near the South Carolina border, according to Wikipedia. The property recently transitioned into a full 80,000-square-foot casino floor in May, moving operations out of the temporary modular trailers that had served visitors since July 2021, per 500 Nations. Hoodline previously covered the casino's expansion ahead of that opening.
Investigators say Cooley may have traveled either north or south on I-85 after leaving the casino, though the direction remains unclear. The interstate runs more than 231 miles through North Carolina, crossing into South Carolina near Grover in Cleveland County while also offering a direct route north toward Gastonia and Charlotte, per the same account from Wikipedia. That stretch of highway is a heavily traveled corridor, which is part of why the alert was broadcast to drivers in both directions rather than a single search zone.
Why the Alert Qualifies Under State Rules
North Carolina's Silver Alert System was created in 2007 under state law to rapidly broadcast emergency information statewide when a missing person is believed to suffer from dementia or another cognitive impairment. As of July 2025, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation updated its guidelines to set the qualifying age at 65 or older, which is why Cooley, at 75, meets the threshold. State guidelines also limit how much medical information agencies can release, restricting disclosures to a general statement that the person is believed to have a cognitive impairment rather than specific diagnoses or history.
Anyone with information on Cooley's whereabouts is asked to contact the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office at 704-484-4822. State law also requires that once a missing person is located, family members or custodians must notify law enforcement immediately so the alert can be canceled and removed from the FBI's National Crime Information Center database.
Part of a Statewide Pattern of Alerts
Cooley's case adds to a steady stream of Silver Alerts issued across North Carolina. The North Carolina Center for Missing Persons activated 288 Silver Alerts statewide in 2025, down from 329 the year before. That agency also logged 13,195 total missing person reports statewide in 2025, including 5,292 involving adults, underscoring how frequently local clearinghouse staff manage cases like this one across the state.
The disappearance is the latest incident to draw attention to the Kings Mountain area near I-85, following a fatal ATV crash that killed a 20-year-old near the interstate and a predawn train collision that killed a 28-year-old woman in the same city last month. Cleveland County's new $7.8 million 911 dispatch hub in Shelby, which opened in June to consolidate countywide emergency coordination, is among the resources handling tips related to Cooley's case. As Queen City News noted, this remains a developing story, and no additional details about Cooley's last confirmed sighting time have been released.
