PLAINFIELD, ILL. (CBS) – It’s a horrible anniversary: Five year ago, Lisa Stebic vanished.

On April 30, 2007, the Plainfield wife and mother disappeared. Her husband said she went for a workout and never returned.

Not a day goes by that Stebic’s family doesn’t think of her and wonder what happened to the young mother. But they still hope they’ll eventually get some answers.

The gazebo around the corner from the Stebic home is empty now — a far cry from the way it looked three years ago when her family and friends came together to remember her.

Stebic’s cousin, Melanie Greenberg, isn’t giving up hope that someday some clue will surface about her final hours.

“We know she’s dead. There’s been no credit-card or cell-phone activity in five years. We know that she is dead. She would not leave her two children,” Greenberg tells CBS 2′s Dana Kozlov.

Stebic was divorcing her husband, Craig, but was still living with him when she disappeared. She vanished the same day she started eviction proceedings against him.

Greenberg says the Stebics’ two children — then 10 and 12 years old — were sent to a store to get candy. When they came back, their mother was gone.

“We don’t know if she’s just buried somewhere in the woods. It’s gruesome to think about, but that’s the things that give Lisa’s family … nightmares,” Greenberg says.

Craig Stebic was questioned and police said he is a “person of interest.”

No one answered the door at the Stebic home Sunday. Greenberg doesn’t know how Lisa’s children are coping. Her immediate family is not able to see them.

“It’s as if Craig has erased their mother from their life, in every possible way,” she says.

Plainfield police have indicated it is still an active investigation, even though there haven’t been any leads in quite some time.