Ind. doctor’s 2011 disappearance now a cold case

MUNSTER, Ind. — The 2011 disappearance of a northwestern Indiana doctor who’s presumed dead has become a cold case police actively investigate only when they get tips.

Seventy-two-year-old ophthalmologist Promila Mehta-Paul was last seen on March 21, 2011, in a surveillance video showing her making a deposit at a Highland bank.

Munster police Detective Sgt. Ray Schweitzer tells The Times of Munster (http://bit.ly/ZGx3HG ) that two years after her disappearance the agency now only actively investigates the case when tips come in, usually from other police agencies.

Authorities say Mehta-Paul’s eldest son remains the primary person of interest in the case. Forty-year-old Paul M. Fontaine is serving a prison term until April 2014 on forgery charges stemming from when he tried to sell his mother’s car six months after she disappeared.