Casefile Extra: Maria Cruz

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On the morning of Monday April 14 2003, staff at Barclays Capital Bank in New York City realised that something was wrong. Senior analyst, 35-year-old Maria Cruz, was known among her colleagues as a hard-working, dependable employee who arrived early and rarely took time off. But despite having a team meeting scheduled that morning, her desk remained empty. With no message or email explaining Maria's absence, her colleagues were immediately concerned. They made numerous attempts to contact her throughout the day, but their calls went unanswered. When Maria failed to appear again the following day, their unease grew. One team member left work to check on her, only to discover that the address he had for Maria was outdated, and she hadn't lived there for months. Back at the office, her colleagues contacted the bank's human resources department to see if they had her current address on file. Armed with the new address, the next morning, another colleague stopped by Maria's building on West 50th Street in Manhattan. When he arrived at Maria's apartment, his attention was instantly drawn to something in front of the door. A small stack of newspapers. Upon closer inspection, he saw that it was three days' worth of the Wall Street Journal, still sealed in their plastic wrappers. With growing concern, Maria's co-worker knocked and rang the doorbell repeatedly. But there was no answer. The door to Maria's apartment remained firmly shut.
She listened with concern as Maria's boss told her that her niece had not been seen or heard from in days. As Maria's emergency contact person, he thought she should know. Like Maria's colleagues, Rebecca instantly recognised how out of character this was for the 35-year-old. She rang one of her nephews who lived near Manhattan and asked him to check on his cousin.
The nephew gathered his two brothers and together they headed for Maria's building. As soon as they saw the pile of untouched newspapers blocking her front door, they knew something wasn't right. The brothers sought out the building manager and explained the situation, asking if he could let them in so they could check on Maria. The building manager was unable to help. He wasn't allowed to let people into a tenant's apartment unless he was legally compelled to do so. Undeterred, the brothers made their way through midtown Manhattan to the nearest police station located on 54th Street. Two officers accompanied them back to the building and forced Maria's door open so the brothers could enter.
Inside the apartment, they saw nothing out of the ordinary. There were no signs of a struggle and no hint of a hurried departure. The apartment was slightly dishevelled, but nothing out of the ordinary for a busy professional with a demanding job. The brothers looked around, but no valuables appeared to be missing. Even Maria's passport sat undisturbed in its usual spot, but there was no sign of their cousin.
Maria Cruz had emigrated to the United States from the Philippines a decade earlier. When news of her disappearance reached her family back home, they began doing what they could to locate her from overseas. Relatives rang around hospitals in New York checking to see if she'd been admitted. Meanwhile, two of Maria's older siblings, her brother June and sister Tess, boarded a flight to New York to assist with the search in person. They landed at JFK International Airport on Friday April 18 2003, five days after Maria was discovered to be missing, to find there was still no news on their sister's whereabouts. They also discovered that a formal missing persons report had not yet been filed. Their cousins explained that they'd tried to file a report as soon as they'd found Maria's apartment empty, but police had advised them to wait a full week, which at the time was the standard waiting period for adults who went missing. But June and Tess didn't want to delay any longer. Along with their uncle, they made their way to the NYPD precinct on West 54th Street to see what could be done. They explained to the officer on duty that Maria was not someone who would voluntarily run away without contacting her family or employer, and emphasised how deeply out of character it was for her to suddenly disappear. After hearing their concerns, police agreed to formally register Maria as a missing person, and an official investigation into her disappearance began. A detective then accompanied the three family members back to Maria's apartment to undertake another search. The apartment looked the same as it had during the first search. But while Maria's cousins hadn't noticed anything out of place, as June and Tess walked through the space, they noticed the details that instantly rang alarm bells.