Lesbian Couple Disappears, Police Desperate for Leads
Wilmington Police Department
Wilmington Police Department
A newly engaged couple from Wilmington, North Carolina, disappeared without a trace. Now their friends and family–not to mention the police–are asking for the public’s help.
Stephanie Mayorga (27) and Paige Escalera (25) got engaged and moved in together last month. According to Escalara’s sister, Stevie Jenkins, the pair hadn’t known each other long.
Mayorga and Escalera were living with a third roommate. She filed a missing persons report when the women failed to return home for three days. However, the initial investigation was slowed down by the fact that the roommate did not know either of the women well. In fact, the roommate did not even know Paige and Stephanie’s last names at first, and couldn’t notify their families until several days after they disappeared.
Jenkins told Oxygen.com that her sister seems to have cut ties with friends and ghosted her workplace shortly before disappearing. Escalera allegedly turned off her phone on April 15–the day she disappeared–and has not contacted anyone since then. She left her phone behind on her bed.
“They had only lived there a week or so before they went missing,” Jenkins said. “As I have been contacting her close friends, I have found that every single one of them had been blocked from her social media over the last week or two. It is normal for family to not hear from her, but not her closest friends.”
It seems that Stephanie Mayorga also cut ties with her friends in the time before the couple disappeared. “As I spoke with Stephanie’s friends, they say it isn’t normal at all that they don’t hear from Stephanie,” Jenkins said.
Mayorga’s dog was also left behind at the apartment.
Police believe that the couple might be traveling together in a gray 2013 Dodge Dart with South Carolina license plate MVS-902.
Both women have long brown hair, although Paige Escalara’s is a lighter brown. Paige has a beauty mark on one cheek and several large tattoos, including one of a skull-shaped hourglass with the name “Laila.”
It appears that the women also have matching tattoos on their ring fingers, including each other’s initials.
Police are treating this as a suspicious disappearance. They believe that it might have something to do with a sale gone wrong from Mayorga’s online business.
“Both family members and authorities believe the couple’s disappearance is suspicious and that’s why they’re working closely with law enforcement agencies across North and South Carolina in hopes of finding the two women,” the Wilmington Police Department said in a statement.
If you have any information, please contact the Wilmington Police Department at (910)-343-3609.