I have been doing South Ro adventures with my 65 chanty and have been checking in on this NPC a couple times a day now for the last 10 days now. I walked up just in time to watch a #^%@ pally kill her the first day I started looking and have never seen her since.
I know per the quest that she "gates" out, which is obviously the despawn event, but I think that she forgot to come back to her friends at the merchant camp.