ON THANKSGIVING, a holiday when families traditionally gather, a loved one will be missing from Pamela Browner's extended clan.

Browner is senior vice president of public relations and government relations for the Philadelphia Eagles. Her missing relative is a niece by marriage, Mitrice Richardson.

"Every time the phone rings and I see my sister's number come up, I'm thinking, 'Do we know? Have they found her?' " Browner told me during a visit to the Daily News Friday.

You may have heard of Richardson's disappearance. The 24-year-old, hazel-eyed former beauty contestant went missing in mid-September, after a solo evening at an upscale restaurant in Malibu, Calif.

According to reports, she'd been behaving strangely and had told people she was from Mars. When she was unable to pay for the Kobe steak and drink she'd ordered, the restaurant notified authorities. The Los Angeles County sheriff's office arrested her on charges of defrauding an innkeeper and possessing a small amount of marijuana. Richardson was given a field sobriety test, which she passed, and processed at their headquarters in a remote section of Malibu.

When it was time for her to leave, jailers offered to let Richardson spend the night in an empty cell or wait out the night in their lobby, but she declined. Richardson reportedly walked out of the station into early- morning darkness, leaving her cell phone, car and purse behind.

Her family hasn't seen her since.

What happened to her?

The sheriff's office reportedly got a call from a neighborhood resident reporting that a tall woman was seen lying on someone's property, but it was unclear whether that was Richardson. Meanwhile, there has been no activity on her bank account. Her family is sick with worry and livid at the sheriff's department for letting Richardson walk away like that, particularly if she had exhibited strange behavior.

"They let her out at 1 o'clock in the morning," Browner pointed out. "They knew she doesn't live in that area. They know she's not from there. This should never have happened. We shouldn't be here having this discussion."

Thousands of people go missing each year, but Richardson's story grabbed my attention. What would make this aspiring substitute teacher with no history of a mental disorder behave so oddly? According to one report I read, she'd joined a table of strangers who'd been amused by her behavior.

When I heard about her case on CNN, I wondered whether her case would grab the nation's attention the way that Yale med student's had. Annie Le went missing just before her wedding day, and her disappearance was nationwide news before her body was found in the lab where she worked. A lab technician has been charged with her murder.

Some in Richardson's family have speculated that if Richardson had been a celebrity, she wouldn't have been allowed to walk off alone without her belongings. But sheriff's officials counter that they had no reason to hold her.

"She matters. She matters to a lot of people and we love her. I live 3,000 miles away. What can I do?" Browner said. "I need your help for my sister, because we are running out of ideas."

Browner's sister Lauren Sutton, who was also at our meeting on Friday, pointed out, "We need as many people talking about Mitrice as possible . . . It has been eight weeks without anything. We are not any closer to finding her than we were on [Sept.] 17."

What has become of this young woman?

Surely the sight of a strikingly attractive woman walking empty-handed along the side of a road in the wee hours would have caught someone's eye. People don't just disappear like that. Someone has to know something.

For more information about the Mitrice Richardson case, log onto www.bring mitricehome.org.

Send e-mail to heyjen@phillynews.com. My blog: http://go.philly.com/heyjen.