Family of missing Wyoming mom, 33, says she sent ‘scared and panicked texts’ before vanishing during cross country trip from Alabama to Wyoming with her ex-boyfriend

The family of a missing Wyoming mother has said she sent scared and panicked text messages before disappearing while traveling cross-country with her ex-boyfriend.

Kathryn “Katie” Ferguson, 33, left her home state for Alabama earlier this year with her two daughters to live with her birth mother and escape her ex, Adam Aviles Jr., according to her relatives.

However, in October, Ferguson asked Aviles, 26, to come get her, and they began traveling home together. But only three made it.

Now Ferguson's stepmother Angela has shown Fox News a series of panicked messages sent to her in the months and weeks before her disappearance.

It shows that Ferguson believed she was sometimes followed by Aviles, and that she was “afraid” to go outside with her daughters, ages four and 11 months.

During the road trip, Ferguson wrote to Angela, “I don't want to be on the side of the road with two kids.

“I know you're probably thinking, well, you should have thought about it and planned, but Adam kept following us.

'I saw him everywhere. I couldn't stay in Cody (Wyoming town)…I'm not asking for much. I just need help.”

Over the next few months, Ferguson stayed with her birth mother until they seemed to have a disagreement, and she committed to moving back to Cody.

She asked Angela if she could book her a cheap hotel while she traveled back to the city.

“On September 25, she asked for money and asked if we would put her up in a hotel… she basically just contacted us,” Angela told Fox, adding that she had booked a room for her.

Ferguson's texts to Angela show her thanking her for the booking, adding: 'We didn't know what we were going to do and we're almost out of gas.

'We are so exhausted. We just want to get as far away from him as possible because we're tired of having to look over (our) shoulders all the time or being afraid to take the girls everywhere.”

During the same conversation, Katie said Aviles was using drugs again. It looks like she called him to pick them up and take them back to Cody.

Her sister, Nicole, told Fox that she was “always so loving” and the last time they spoke in September, “she seemed fine.”

“She said I love you and I said I love you too and that was the last time we spoke,” she said.

But she alleged that Aviles has a dark history of “mental abuse” against her sister, and that he questioned her when she wanted to leave the house.

“He was very protective of her and honestly didn't let her do much,” Nicole said.

“He was very possessive and very controlling about a lot of the things she did, especially towards the end.”

“What I think happened after I talked to the investigator — I know they can't tell me everything — but I think he snapped,” Nicole said.

'I know in my heart that she is no longer alive. I don't need any proof from anyone because I know if she had been here she would have gotten one of us.

“Katie doesn't hide, she's not that kind of person.”

“If that's the case, I hope she died instantly and didn't suffer,” she added.

Federal court documents show Ferguson left Alabama in early October with Aviles and her two daughters, ages four and 11 months. She was last seen in Arkansas on October 5.

But four days later, on October 9, when Aviles was stopped by Texas State Patrol officers, officers noticed a “projectile hole” on the passenger side of the vehicle and no sign of Ferguson.

Aviles was apprehended again in Colorado and was the only adult in the car, the federal complaint alleges.

Aviles reportedly returned to Wyoming with Ferguson's children, but still no sign of their mother.

On November 4, his car, a 1999 Dodge Durango, was later found in the Oregon Basin area near Cody, Wyoming. That was two days after police began searching for Ferguson and she was reported missing.

When members of the Park County Sheriff's Office found the vehicle, Sheriff Darrell Steward said he could smell “putrid blood” coming from the vehicle, according to the Cowboy State Daily.

The front passenger seat was missing and multiple Clorox wipes were found inside the vehicle. Police also found a loaded Glock pistol in the vehicle. According to the report, DNA tests at the scene have yet to identify the suspect.

Two days after his vehicle was located, a search warrant was executed by federal agents.

On Nov. 8, police spoke with Aviles and he allegedly told officers that Katie “was not missing, but she just doesn't want contact with her mother,” court documents allege.

One of the children did make statements about the fact that the father accidentally hurt her mother, according to the Cowboy State Daily.

Aviles was convicted of heroin possession in 2017 and was recently charged with possession of the firearm ammunition.

But police have not yet charged him in connection with Ferguson's disappearance.

The missing woman's mother, Angela Ferguson, told local news channel KTVQ News that “it's all pointing in a very tragic direction, and so it's difficult.”

“It's hard to hear the rumors, to hear what might have happened to her. It's just unfathomable, she added. 'It's devastating. It's the most tragic, terrible thing there is.'

The family is still waiting to hear from investigators about possible DNA on clothing and other items investigators found in the truck.

Aviles is being held in a prison in Casper, Wyoming, on federal charges he has pleaded not guilty to. A trial date has been set for January 24.

Aviles' attorney, David Weiss, did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.