Family uses video to track Danielle Lopez’s last known movements
After 37-year-old Danielle Lopez disappeared in April of 2024, a trail of breadcrumbs has provided information on her last movements, with her loved ones hoping a newly discovered video will help them find out what happened to her.
The video was discovered by a YouTuber who was showcasing New Jersey’s Brendan Byrne campground that same month.
Two years later, as he read about Lopez’s disappearance, he realized he might have captured her on video.
He immediately reached out to Lopez’s mother, who confirmed a brief image in the video is her daughter.
It’s one more piece of a frustrating puzzle.
Struggling with addiction and homelessness, Danielle Lopez and her long-term boyfriend often stayed at state park campgrounds.
Their last stay was at the same site captured by YouTuber “Fire and Trails,” who accidentally captured the video of Lopez.
He went back to retrace her steps, matching the video up with a photo taken by a neighbor camper right before her disappearance.
Quackenbush spoke to Lopez the day before her disappearance and said she sounded ready to make a change.
“At least, that’s how I hung up the phone, believing that,” she said.
Instead, investigators eventually pieced together a different timeline.
Lopez left the campsite on Saturday, Apr. 13, 2024, taking the car.
At 9:11 a.m., she’s seen on surveillance leaving a Wawa convenience store in Vincentown, New Jersey, with a cup of coffee.
James Ramsey, a private investigator hired by Quackenbush, has reviewed the footage.
“She looked in good spirits. She did not look like she was in any sort of trouble,” he said. “This was the last known picture of her for quite a while.
It took two and a half weeks for the next clue to arrive, 12 miles from the campsite.
State police located Lopez’s car stuck and disabled in a deep, muddy ditch near Oswego Lake.
“So this area of the Pine Barrens is dirt road and it goes on like a maze,” Ramsey said.
A couple who were in the area that day later came forward with video from 4 p.m., showing Lopez driving and asking for directions to Oswego Lake.
Around 5:50 p.m., they encountered her again, this time on foot. She was walking on “Lost Lane,” saying she wrecked her car in the mud.
“There’s almost lakes on the road and the way to get past them is you drive up the bank, you can’t drive through them,” Ramsey said. “It looks like, unfortunately, Danielle drove into one, which completely disabled her vehicle. I would say the water was over the driver’s seat, deep in the puddle.”
The couple said they didn’t have the equipment to pull her out and didn’t want to get stuck too.
Lopez then continued toward the main parking lot, saying she was going to wait there.
“She’s scared, she’s upset, she’s saying my phone doesn’t work,” Ramsey said.
That leaves him with two big questions: What happened after the video, and why was she at Oswego Lake in the first place?
Quackenbush wonders if Lopez was taking a ride to blow off steam and cool off. Around 8:30 p.m., a good Samaritan posted that he pulled the car out of the mud.
But Lopez never returned to the car or contacted her family.
On Apr. 22, her mother texted Lopez’s boyfriend, asking if he knew where she was.
He said no, that she left the campground on Wednesday and he’s also worried.
Lopez’s family was suspicious and now, two years later, is desperate for answers.
“I’ve offered a $25,000 reward of my own money,” Quackenbush said. “Any answers, any leads, any tips.”
She hopes the reward will help bring answers and closure for her daughter.
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