On April 3, 2016, Melissa Boarts  frantic mother took her two-year-old granddaughter to search for her mentally ill daughter, after realizing she had disappeared. I heard Melissa go into to the living room, and I went in there to talk to her,  Terry Boarts told the Montgomery Observer.  She was gone. She had left. Boarts  mother says the 36-year-old Alabama woman was diagnosed with bipolar manic depression. She was having trouble with her medication and had scheduled an appointment with her doctors in hopes of finding a more effective medication.On Sunday, before disappearing, she told family members she was going to kill herself by slitting her wrists.When Terry Boarts finally located her daughter, she says she was driving on the Interstate,  heading toward Auburn. Not knowing what else to do, Terry Boarts called 911. She says she told the dispatch operator that her daughter was  having mental issues  that she was bipolar, that she had been really depressed, that she was saying she was going to cut her wrists. According to attorneys representing the Boarts family, Melissa Boarts was 5 4 and weighed about 130 lbs.After pursuing her vehicle down a dirt road, police say that the mentally-ill woman got out of her vehicle and charged at them with a weapon.Police say that the officer on scene felt threatened and feared for his life. He fired his police-issued weapon, ending her life.Terry Boarts says that the family was initially not given any information from officers, beyond being told that there was  fatality. We re still assuming the road ended and she hit a tree,  Terry Boarts told the Montgomery Observer.  They never told us she had been shot. Melinda Boarts, Melissa Boarts  twin sister, said police finally came back after hours, to tell the family  they shot her. Melissa Boarts  family is shocked and outraged over her death at the hands of the people they trusted to help her in a time of need.Her father spent 25 years working for the Alabama Department of Corrections. There was absolutely no justification for it,  he said in a statement released through the family s attorney.  (Police officers) knew exactly what was going on. That s why we can t understand why they had to shoot her,  he told the Montgomery Observer, calling the shooting  absolutely outrageous. Auburn police have refused to say whether there is video or audio from the scene of the shooting, but promised to make all evidence public, once it becomes available.As The Washington Post reports here, there have been 262 fatal police shootings so far in 2016.A person with mental illness is 16 times more likely than others to be killed by police.Here s more on this story from Alabama s WRBL. Featured image via video screen capture from WRBL