The desperate search for a missing Dallas ISD employee continued Friday as friends and family of Jennifer Mendez Olascoaga gathered in Seagoville where the 24-year-old was last seen.
“We’re just out here on Belt Line trying to get maybe some footage, spread the word out here if anybody saw her last. You know, just trying to get something,” said Mendez Olascoaga’s brother-in-law Marco Barroso.
Thursday, Barroso said the family learned of surveillance footage showing Mendez Olascoaga at a QuickTrip gas station along BeltLine and Highway 175 shortly after 8 p.m. on the night of Sept. 27.
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Mendez Olascoaga’s white Buick sedan was found abandoned along rural Lawson Road in Mesquite the next morning.
Her purse and phone were both missing.
It’s the family’s first new information in days that Barroso said the family hopes will lead to more.
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“If you know anything, if you’ve seen that car here on Belt Line that night, maybe she was being followed by somebody that night. If anything, call the police department,” he said.
As loved ones desperately search for answers, Barroso said what they do believe is that Mendez Olascoaga would not have disappeared by choice, leaving behind a job she enjoyed as a Dallas ISD teacher’s assistant and abandoning a car she had nearly paid off.
They also worry about text messages sent to a friend from an untraceable number saying, ‘Hey, do you miss someone? Do you miss someone? You’ll never find her. She’s gone. Jennifer Mendez and you’re next’.”
Still, the family pushes forward.
“I have hope that she’s ok somewhere, but it’s very hard to talk about that,” said Barroso.
Seagoville PD confirms there is an open investigation into her disappearance but has yet to release any new information or announce any official search efforts.
