'The worst thing': FBI, Ogden mom seek help in locating teen who went missing in Mexico City
Alma Soreque and an FBI rep spoke to the media, seeking help in locating Soreque's daughter Elizabeth Gonzalez, who went missing on June 30 in Mexico City.
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'The worst thing': FBI, Ogden mom seek help in locating teen who went missing in Mexico City
All Alma Soreque wanted was for her daughter, Elizabeth Gonzalez, to learn about her Mexican roots, about Mexican culture.So the 14-year-old Ogden girl, a U.S. citizen who finished seventh grade in May, traveled in mid-June to Mexico City to spend the summer at her grandmother's house. But she went missing from her grandmother's Mexico City neighborhood on June 30, and now Soreque — a Mexican transplant to Ogden — is pleading for help from the public to locate her, aided by the FBI and Mexican authorities.
"Elizabeth, my daughter, I love you. We miss you so much. We're not going to stop looking for you," Soreque said Wednesday in a meeting with reporters at the FBI field office in Salt Lake City. Though living in Ogden, Elizabeth had been attending Roy Junior High.
Steven Hymas, an FBI special agent, also addressed reporters, hoping to bring broader attention to the case so that someone somewhere may have a scrap of information that can help in locating Elizabeth. FBI and other U.S. officials based in Mexico City are working with their Mexican counterparts as part of the investigation.
"We don't have any reason to believe that she is not in the country of Mexico at this moment," said Hymas, dubbing the matter an "investigation of a missing girl." "That said, we do believe that there will be people here who know information. Maybe they have reached out to friends or acquaintances or other family members who might know something that can help us out."
Moreover, Hymas noted the omnipresence of electronic communication in this day and age. Even if someone is kidnapped or goes missing, he said, "If they can communicate with others, they will try."
Telemundo Utah said in a report Monday that two younger cousins of Elizabeth also went missing, but neither Hymas nor Soreque said they could speak to that aspect of the case. Telemundo identified the two other girls as Sofia Mailen Moreno Zamora, 6, and Regina Moreno Zamora, 4, and Amber Alert Mexico said the girls — Mexican citizens — had gone missing on the same day and from the same area of Mexico City as Elizabeth.
Soreque said she had spoken with her daughter earlier in the day she went missing. Elizabeth had traveled alone to Mexico City on June 15 and was to remain there until Aug. 7.
Later, Soreque said, her daughter went to a neighborhood store in the Azcapotzalco section of Mexico City, where her grandma — Soreque's mother — lives, to get a soda. Soreque grew up there and described the community as having a "small town" feel, even if it's located within the expansive Mexico City metropolis.
From there, things are cloudy. "There's surveillance video of (Elizabeth) getting into a taxi. We believe she was manipulated by an adult to get into that taxi, and we have not seen her since," Hymas said.
