The tragic end to a search for a missing teen has us flashing back to a classic Los Angeles mystery from a few years back…
An 18-year-old named Debanhi Escobar disappeared into thin air in the early hours of April 9. According to reports, the teen was partying with a couple friends in Nuevo León, Mexico, in the city of Escobedo. But after an argument, her friends split up for the night, and one called her a cab to bring her home.
Apparently the taxi driver was someone the trio of friends knew, a 47-year-old man named Jesús. He was taking her home, but en route they had a “heated discussion” — police later told her father it appeared as if he may have touched her inappropriately, and she didn’t put up with it. The driver dropped her off in the middle of nowhere, specifically on the side of the highway that leads to the border town of Nuevo Laredo. The highway is nicknamed the “death road” due to the unusually high number of people who have disappeared along the 130 mile stretch. A shocking 77 people went missing there just last year! It’s not somewhere you want to be left alone as an 18-year-old girl in the middle of the night.
Jesús thought, for some reason, to take a photo of Debanhi standing on the side of the road, what’s thought to be the final image ever taken of her.
Security footage captured her wandering into the site of a trucking company called Alcosa Transportes Internacionales, but there’s no video of her ever exiting.
She was just… gone.
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The next two weeks saw a huge public outpouring of support as her family searched for the poor girl. In a massive search, police utilized dogs, drones, surveillance footage, everything. Jesús was arrested on drug charges and questioned about the disappearance. Apparently he had been investigated previously for attempted kidnapping of women, so he quickly became the obvious person of interest.
Sadly, the search ended on Thursday.
Workers at a motel in the area reported “fetid odors” to police. Investigators tracked the smell to an abandoned cistern, a 12-foot deep water tank, by the pool. Inside they found a decomposing body, reportedly unrecognizable. She was identified as Debanhi by her outfit and a crucifix she had been wearing.
Her father, Mario Escobar, confirmed the heartbreaking news to reporters, saying:
“My daughter is dead. And I do not know what to do.”
A terrible outcome — and for El Lay locals, an oddly familiar one. The location of the body is exactly the same as where a young woman was found nine years ago atop the Cecil Hotel. Workers at the hotel, renamed the Stay On Main, were investigating the low water pressure and discovered the body of Elisa Lam, a Canadian tourist who had vanished while visiting. The mystery was never solved to anyone’s satisfaction, with investigators ruling her death an accident. The incident became local legend, making its way into several film and TV mystery plots.
We can only express our hope that the family of Debanhi Escobar is given more closure than Lam’s.
[Image via Excelsior TV/YouTube/Debanhi Escobar/Instagram.]
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