Over the course of our Lacking in San Antonio sequence, we documented the tales of eight people who find themselves lacking in San Antonio by quite a few cellphone calls, residence visits and textual content messages with relations and pals who’ve been looking for their family members.
This story contains as a lot as might be corroborated by police and background experiences. Some people’ figuring out particulars have been omitted except they’ve been named an individual of curiosity by legislation enforcement. Nobody has been charged within the disappearances of those individuals.
In case you have any info on a case, name the SAPD Lacking Individuals Unit at 210-207-7660 or the Bexar County Sheriff’s Workplace at 210-335-6000.
To submit a protected, nameless tip to Undertaking Absentis, a nonprofit group of retired and former detectives who seek for lacking individuals and acquire proof, name 726-777-1359 or e-mail information@projectabsentis.org.
Bianca Carrasco
Bianca Carrasco was a 29-year-old nurse and mom when she walked away from her Longs Creek neighborhood on the far North Aspect of San Antonio on Could 1, 2016.
However her sister, Jovanna Burney, stated Carrasco would by no means go away her three kids behind.
Within the days main as much as her disappearance, Carrasco had been concerned in an argument and wished a divorce. She had deliberate to rent an legal professional to achieve full custody of her kids.
Her husband instructed Burney he assumed her sister left residence voluntarily after leaving her marriage ceremony ring, with out saying the place she was going.
Burney made him name the police to report her lacking, so he did, however no lacking individuals report was generated.
In line with Burney, Carrasco’s husband conveyed to police that Carrasco had an affair and possibly ran off with one other individual, an allegation that Burney believes had an impression on how the case was dealt with.
Police data element how Carrasco’s husband additionally emptied out his spouse’s checking account and took her cellphone away. Burney stated he instructed her that he drove previous Carrasco on his technique to work within the early morning hours of Could 1, leaving their two oldest kids at residence.
Lacking in San Antonio is a multi-part sequence by the San Antonio Report on individuals who go lacking and the individuals who work to seek out them.
Learn the primary installment right here.
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In line with Burney, SAPD’s Murder and Lacking Individuals Unit instructed her that with none extra proof or discovering her sister, nobody might be held accountable for her disappearance.
When Carrasco went lacking in 2016, Youngster Protecting Providers started to analyze and briefly eliminated the youngsters from Carrasco’s residence. Burney alleges police didn’t use info from the interviews with CPS, which might have helped the investigation, she stated.
“A part of me thinks that she’s a Hispanic girl. Our mom is in jail, my father needs nothing to do with this, so you’ve gotten that as an element, virtually as in the event that they weren’t going to take me significantly. I used to be in my early 30s and I’m additionally a Hispanic girl,” Burney stated.
Burney described her sister as a caring mom and a nurse who shaped pleasant relationships with the chemotherapy sufferers on the oncology clinic the place she labored.
“She must be discovered. It is a solvable case,” she stated.
Police aren’t required to spend any variety of hours on “pending additional investigation” circumstances, also called chilly circumstances — the designation that’s been assigned to Carrasco’s case, in accordance with SAPD. They work on them as leads are available in, so except there’s credible info coming to police, Carrasco’s case is taken into account chilly.
Though it’s been eight years, Burney hasn’t stopped looking for her sister. She has given a number of interviews to nonprofit organizations devoted to serving to discover lacking individuals, to YouTubers who make movies on the case and to anybody who will hear. However she has to step away typically to get better, then come again and do it once more.
A selfie of Carrasco smiling underneath the phrases “MISSING SINCE 2016 BIANCA CARRASCO. CALL SA CRIME STOPPERS” was proven on a billboard close to I-10 close to Wurzbach Highway for a couple of month.
Burney additionally recruited one other group, Undertaking Absentis, to actively seek for Carrasco. Its director, retired FBI Agent Abel Peña, publicly posts statements and movies, calling for Carrasco’s husband to take a polygraph check. Though it’s not admissible in court docket, he says the check can assist pinpoint the place Carrasco could also be.
Burney continues to ask SAPD to launch cellular phone location information from the evening Carrasco went lacking so she will be able to manage searches in these areas and needs police to query Carrasco’s husband. Carrasco’s cellular phone has by no means been recovered. Its final recognized location was the evening she went lacking at her residence.
Carrasco is 5 toes, 1 inch tall, has brown hair that was shoulder size when she went lacking and has brown eyes. She is right-handed and has a big scar on her stomach and the letter “B” tattooed on her left hip. She turned 38 on July 24.
Jeanie Chavez
When Jeanie Chavez moved to San Antonio from San Pedro, California 10 years in the past, she bought a house and loved working with kids in foster care and residents at an assisted dwelling facility. Then an habit took over her life.
She grew to become depending on painkillers and misplaced custody of her daughters, ages 2 and 10, earlier than searching for assist at a rehabilitation heart. However she left earlier than she might end this system.
Her mom, Annie Salcido, discovered Chavez was lacking when a romantic associate known as and knowledgeable her Chavez had left on July 18, leaving all of her issues at residence.
“I knew proper off the bat that was a lie, so I reported her lacking,” she stated. Salcido lives in California, however stored calling the SAPD no less than 5 instances a day to ask about her daughter.
She stated a scarcity of urgency from legislation enforcement is what fueled her thought to rent a personal investigator to seek for her daughter, a luxurious many households can’t afford.
“She’s a tremendous mom, she is an effective individual, she’s simply chosen this sort of life. Her habit has taken over her life,” Salcido stated.
Police took the lacking individuals case in August.
Chavez’s lacking individuals poster features a picture of a bruised eye. She had reported alleged home violence to SAPD a month earlier than going lacking.
Lately, she discovered by her daughter’s medical data that her daughter was pregnant on the time of the reported assault.
Though her case is labeled “at-risk,” legislation enforcement has not known as a search at a particular space for Chavez, as a result of there was no proof of a criminal offense or a physique, Salcido stated.
Search and Help San Antonio, an area nonprofit group that helps households bear the prices of looking for their lacking family members, led searches for Chavez after speaking with homeless individuals who shared info on the place she had been seen.
Salcido seems like legislation enforcement isn’t doing sufficient. “I see no sense of urgency,” she stated.
“They don’t care as a result of she was an addict. They don’t care as a result of the approach to life she was dwelling wasn’t excellent. She wasn’t an actual property agent, she wasn’t a nurse … She made poor selections and she or he was dwelling a life-style that was reckless,” she stated.
“I’m offended,” she stated. “It’s not simply my daughter. It’s thousands and thousands of households that don’t get solutions, that don’t have closure.”
Chavez is probably not in San Antonio anymore and should have been in a black and tan 2008 Ford Explorer with the license plate PSJ5380, in accordance with the Nationwide Lacking and Unidentified Individuals System database NamUs.
She is 5 toes, 6 inches tall, has darkish brown eyes and brown hair. She has a number of tattoos, together with a rose with a spider on the fitting facet of her neck, an owl on her center finger, and butterflies with a sword on her proper forearm. She has the phrase “kindness” on her proper shoulder, bows on her calves, and a photograph of her little brother with angel wings on her again. She will likely be 33 in March.
Jorge Garza Perales
Jorge Garza Perales talked to his mom on daily basis. They texted and known as one another all day lengthy in order that she wouldn’t fear about him from the place she lived in Mexico.
Till Aug. 21.
His mom, Ana Lilia Perales Ruiz, was one of many final individuals he made contact with the evening he went lacking. Two days had handed when his household started to significantly fear concerning the uncommon silence.
“He would talk with me when he wakened so I might bless him,” Perales Ruiz stated over the cellphone from Linares, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. “I considered what was happening as a result of he was enthusiastic about his landscaping job.”
His shut pal Anita Garcia, who lives in San Antonio, tried to report him lacking, however as a result of she wasn’t a member of the family, Garza Perales’ household needed to come from Mexico to report him lacking — a course of that took practically every week longer.
When Perales Ruiz arrived at her son’s residence in San Antonio, she noticed all his issues had been there, even his Mexican passport.
When Garza Perales’ household reported him lacking, police instructed his mom he might have left voluntarily.
“Since he’s an grownup, they didn’t begin on the lookout for him immediately. Police thought possibly he left, didn’t need something to do with household,” his mom stated in Spanish.
However she stated that wasn’t attainable, as a result of he was near his household and didn’t have any issues with them when he disappeared.
“His birthday is Dec. 21. Tomorrow,” she stated in a Dec. 20 interview. “What we wish is for God to convey my son residence, to present me that miracle and provides me excellent news. I belief loads in God.”
Garza Perales got here to San Antonio for work. He’s a landscaper who began taking work at solely $25 a yard and had celebrated getting massive contracts for work the times earlier than he went lacking.
The circumstances surrounding his disappearance aren’t clear.
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Workplace has just one detective in its lacking individuals unit, who’s investigating the case.
“I believe they want extra assist on this space of lacking individuals. They’ve performed all the pieces they’ll legally and presumably do, however personally as a result of I knew him, I really feel prefer it’s not sufficient. I wish to be on the market wanting and looking out till we discover him or some solutions,” Garcia stated.
Garcia needed to cease talking for a second, interested by how exhausting it’s to stay on daily basis, not understanding.
“Am I on the lookout for him in misery? Am I on the lookout for him being held in opposition to his will? Am I on the lookout for him gone as a result of he wished to be gone? Did one thing occur to him and he now not has life?” she requested.
The household has sought assist from Search and Rescue SATX, a volunteer group that helps households seek for lacking individuals. The group is main searches in areas the place Garza Perales could also be and serving to share details about the case. When attainable, his household travels to San Antonio from Mexico to search for him.
Garza Perales is 5 foot, 8 inches tall and has black hair and brown eyes. Garza Perales’ silver Nissan Sentra can also be lacking. It has a Texas license plate that reads SSS6443. He can be 27 as we speak.
Pauline Cantu Diaz
Pauline Cantu Diaz went lacking from an H-E-B parking zone on San Antonio’s South Aspect on Dec. 7, 2010. She had simply moved again to her residence in San Antonio after separating from her husband.
“He instructed me no girl leaves him, he leaves them,” Cantu Diaz’s daughter, Paula Diaz-Martinez, stated he as soon as instructed her when her mom was nonetheless alive.
It’s been 14 years since she final noticed her mom, a loving, family-oriented grandmother who made tortillas at H-E-B.
Since then, their household has been torn aside, Diaz-Martinez stated, with one sibling disassociating from the truth that their mom is lacking and two others who’ve made the seek for her central to their lives.
The case began in Wilson County, the place Cantu Diaz’s automotive was discovered empty alongside a grassy space of U.S. Hwy 181 and Farm-to-Market Highway 320 close to Floresville.
There was turmoil virtually immediately, Diaz-Martinez stated, when the case was handed off between the Wilson County and Bexar County sheriff’s places of work and slowed by turnover of detectives who both give up the division or bought promotions.
Diaz-Martinez and her sister Juanita Diaz Flores search for closure on daily basis since their mom went lacking.
In 2018, the sisters requested the BCSO to take the case once more, alleging that in 2010, Wilson County didn’t dig in a spot the place a cadaver canine had signaled the presence of human stays. In 2018, Bexar County dug in that space and located a pig cranium, placing an finish to that lead.
The household employed a personal investigator early on to assist discover clues of the place Cantu Diaz could also be. Charlie Parker, the non-public investigator working the case, now helps the household professional bono.
He believes Cantu Diaz was quietly killed by somebody she could have recognized.
“She’s so small and … that’s wooded nation on the market. Throughout from her home was like 30 acres of wooden, and down the road is woods,” he stated.
Two years after she went lacking, Cantu Diaz’s estranged husband filed for divorce in 2012 and remarried one other girl, who 9 years later in 2021 filed a restraining and protecting order in opposition to him.
There have been no arrests and the case is pending additional investigation, resulting from a scarcity of circumstantial proof. BCSO solely has one detective investigating lacking individuals circumstances.
In September, Search and Help San Antonio unveiled a brand new billboard that will likely be up for a 12 months close to the place the automotive was deserted.
“We actually want to focus on Floresville like we’ve performed San Antonio,” Diaz-Martinez stated.
Cantu Diaz was 4 toes, 11 inches tall, had brown eyes and wore wire-rimmed glasses. She had pierced ears and curly, grey quick hair which ended about midway down her earlobes. The day she went lacking, she had been driving her 2010 white Tacoma with the license plate AA48807. She can be 77 as we speak.
Cindy Gausline
Cindy Gausline was final seen leaving her Eastside house on Sept. 15, the place she lived together with her three kids and pals.
She didn’t have a automotive, and she or he didn’t inform anybody the place she was going.
A Fb Messenger cellphone name from Gausline that evening anxious her household, making them imagine she could also be in peril.
“All I do know is that they stated she stated she was scared and the decision disconnected,” her brother JC Gausline stated. “When she walked out the home, she was laughing and stated ‘I’ll be again in a while, if not, I’ll be again earlier than the morning.’”
Her household filed a lacking individuals report with SAPD the following day, informing them that she had melancholy and that she had left her private belongings in her house.
Within the three months since she went lacking, they haven’t stopped passing out her lacking individuals flyer and posting about her on social media.
Her case has been labeled as endangered lacking, that means police imagine she went lacking underneath suspicious circumstances or that she could also be in peril.
“She loves her youngsters. She’s a typical mother,” JC Gausline stated.
The household’s ask to most people is to “go searching, have a look at individuals” in case Gausline is noticed in public.
Gausline is 4 toes, 11 inches tall, has crimson hair and hazel eyes. She additionally has distinctive tattoos, which embrace a Virgo zodiac image on her left wrist, cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants on her proper arm, an infinity image with the phrases “by thick and skinny” on the left facet of her chest, and the identify “Thomas” in crimson ink on her left shoulder. She can be 31 as we speak.
Kassanda Gonzalez
It’s been a 12 months and 4 months since Kassandra Gonzalez’s household final noticed her. She went lacking on Aug. 11, 2023.
She’s a mom of 4 from Laredo who grew up and lived in San Antonio. She usually posted about hanging out with pals and posted selfies together with her kids on social media.
However she had been hanging round with a foul crowd earlier than her disappearance, her sister Alyssa Ballard stated. Ballard lives in San Antonio, and always posts about her sister lacking on-line.
The day earlier than Gonzalez went lacking, she filed a restraining order in opposition to the daddy of her youngest kids and was in the midst of a custody battle.
“He was a extremely unhealthy drug person,” Ballard stated. “She was fearing for her life and she or he stated she wished to flee that and get custody of her youngsters, so it’s type of bizarre she wouldn’t preserve contact together with her youngsters if she was doing that.”
A pal picked Gonzalez up after her shift at an area cellular phone retailer on Aug. 11, 2023, and drove her residence, the place she packed up her belongings and left. She was texting particular those who day on the lookout for a journey residence and planning to fulfill.
That pal was questioned after her make-up bag was present in his automotive. Police additionally took cadaver canines to a ranch he frequented, however finally, there was a scarcity of proof to cost anybody in connection together with her disappearance.
“The cops stated she’s an grownup, she bought a journey from him. They did look into him, … however they suggested me the case was closed due to a scarcity of proof,” her sister stated. SAPD says that the case remains to be an energetic lacking individuals case, categorized as “at-risk.”
“They didn’t take heed to me, actually. That’s the factor that frustrates me essentially the most,” Ballad stated. “It’s very aggravating, it’s very irritating that legislation enforcement gained’t proceed to assist me, even with leads, I imagine it’s a superb cause to query [more] individuals.”
Ballard stated she’s offended and believes her sister’s case might be investigated additional. She needs to know Gonzalez’s cellphone’s final recognized location, however as a result of there’s no proof that she was killed, “there’s no cause for them to go digging by her cellphone data,” she stated.
“It’s exhausting to simply be ready round to see what’s going to occur, if she’s useless or alive or if she’s being trafficked. It’s actually exhausting, particularly through the holidays … ready round for some sort of solutions.”
Gonzalez is 5 toes, 2 inches tall, has brown hair, brown eyes and should put on glasses. She was final seen carrying a black Cricket cell shirt, blue denims and huge gold hoop earrings. She has a number of distinctive tattoos, together with the identify “Gonzalez” on her abdomen in cursive, “respect my thoughts” in cursive on her again, a Pisces zodiac image on her foot, and piercings on her tongue, nostril and stomach button. She can be 31 as we speak.
Amalia Garza
The final time Daniela Valdez noticed her sister Amalia Garza was six years in the past. The mom of three went lacking on March 1, 2018, after telling her household she was going to a celebration together with her boyfriend’s household.
That evening was additionally the final time Valdez spoke to her sister on FaceTime, however she couldn’t see her face as a result of it was darkish — a element she’s nonetheless attempting to make sense of.
“That’s one of many issues I initially thought: … ‘Are you attempting to cover one thing, a bruise or one thing?’ It wasn’t the sign in any respect,” she stated.
Garza used to talk to her mom or textual content on daily basis. That communication stopped out of the blue on the day she went lacking, Valdez stated.
Her household didn’t report her lacking till April 2018, after being suggested by police to see if she returned on her personal.
“They instructed us we needed to wait as a result of she was an grownup and she or he most likely went someplace and that she’d most likely present up,” Garza’s mom Sylvia Gonzalez recalled. She known as her daughter “Molly.”
That made Gonzalez anxious. She stated she had seen a bruise on her daughter’s face earlier than and discovered that her boyfriend on the time would lock her inside a room.
“I stated, ‘don’t return. He’s going to finish up hurting you or killing you … I’m not afraid of anyone. I’ll rise up for you and I’ll take any bullet for you,’” Gonzalez recalled in a current interview, her voice breaking on the opposite line.
“And since then, I’d verify on her, understanding what he had performed to her,” she stated.
Two years after Garza went lacking, her boyfriend was charged with aggravated kidnapping for holding a distinct girl in opposition to her will, taking her cellphone away and sexually assaulting her. He’s out on bail for that cost, however has not been charged or named as a suspect in Garza’s disappearance.
In line with Garza’s siblings and mom, her boyfriend’s household has not cooperated with them.
“Generally we expect possibly … she’s buried someplace,” Valdez stated. “After which different instances, we’re questioning, is she on the market drugged as much as the purpose the place she doesn’t even know who she is or the place she belongs, or she’s simply out within the streets, not being taken care of or wandering round, not understanding?”
Garza’s mom lives in Pearsall as we speak, happening on daily basis with out her daughter. On Dec. 14, she shared flyers with individuals who stopped by her desk at a Mexican restaurant parking zone on 1 U.S. Hwy 46, north of 281.
On a sizzling pink billboard close by, Garza’s info and picture is on show for drivers to see till July 2025, made attainable by Search and Help San Antonio and funded by Season of Justice, a nonprofit group that helps households seek for their lacking family members.
It was positioned there deliberately, a number of miles away from the place Garza’s boyfriend’s household lives and the place they imagine she might be buried, Gonzalez stated.
Garza is 5 toes, 1 inch tall. She has brown hair, brown eyes, and straight hair with wavy components in it. She has a tattoo of a butterfly inside her proper wrist. She can be 46 as we speak.
Katelyn Vara
Katelyn Vara, a mom with a bit of boy at residence, abruptly stopped speaking together with her household and didn’t return residence after an Aug. 6 medical appointment to deal with substance abuse simply 5 blocks away.
She didn’t have a automotive or a driver’s license, so she walked like common.
It took Valerie Mendoza three makes an attempt to report her daughter lacking.
“They stated she didn’t match the standards. She had free will and was in a position to go away and by no means return if she didn’t wish to. I instructed them, that’s not what’s taking place right here,” Mendoza stated.
The second time she tried to make a report Mendoza stated she requested the operator when the state of affairs would develop into a lacking individuals case.
“He stated like over a month or so,” she stated. “They didn’t wish to hear after they noticed her [police] file and ran her identify.”
It wasn’t till Mendoza went to the West Aspect substation and refused to go away with out a lacking individuals case quantity that Vara was a reported lacking individual.
“I used to be very upset. They completely disregarded me like she was nothing,” she stated. “Regardless if she has a substance abuse drawback, she’s nonetheless a human being and deserves assist as a lot as another individual.”
On Aug. 11, Mendoza found that another person had her daughter’s cellphone whereas desperately attempting to contact her.
The individual insisted Vara had offered them her cellphone and that that they had no thought who she was.
In line with Mendoza, police have discovered proof inside a car that will belong to Vara, however detectives warned her the Bexar County Crime Lab has a monthslong backlog.
“I simply need them to seek out her,” she stated.
Vara is 5 toes tall. She often wears her lengthy brown hair in a ponytail, and has brown eyes. She has a facial piercing underneath her proper eye, and a mole on the fitting facet of her brow. She can be 27 as we speak.
