Arelie Garcia // 447
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Thank you.

What is going on, true crime fans? I'm your host, Heath. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello, everybody. Hope you're doing well today. This case today was recommended by Brittany, Chelsea, and Anna. This is such a suspicious story, so make sure you guys are sharing this one because her family really needs our help.

Yeah, this one takes place on the very first day of fall in 2022 along the misty coastline of the Big Sur area, which is in California. So let's put our heads together on this one. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. And without further ado, this is episode 447 of Going West. So let's get into it. ♪♪♪

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Monday.com for whatever you run. Go to Monday.com to learn more. And a Selena's family is continuing to hold on to hope after now living a full year without knowing where their daughter Arely Garcia is. Arely Garcia is the baby in her family. She's considered hardworking, always maintaining a job at auto dealerships and helped her mother pay for the bills of their two bedroom apartment in Selena's.

On September 22, 2022, Arely went missing, and the mystery surrounding how her day started would all begin. Arely Garcia was seen leaving her apartment around 6:30 in the morning, headed to work. Garcia never made it to work. Instead, police found her red Honda Accord in Big Sur near the Little Sur River. Her car was locked, and phone and car keys were found inside the vehicle, but no sign of Arely Garcia.

Nobody disappears into thin air. That doesn't happen. There are clues. There is evidence left behind. Apparently, nobody's finding it. Do you agree or disagree with that? Somebody probably saw something. They just haven't found that person yet, and hopefully they will. And maybe with enough attention, they'll come forward and say what they saw. This is a really unusual case. It's

Two days of searching around the car that they found her personal items in the car and no trace of her whatsoever. We want answers. Arely could be your daughter, your sister, your mom, and in my case, my aunt. How many more women need to go missing for Salinas Police Department to respond to our cries for help?

Arely Garcia was born on July 22nd, 1997 in Salinas, California, which is the largest city in Monterey County, California, nestled between Monterey and Santa Cruz, just about 20 minutes inland from the sea.

She was the youngest of seven children born into a tight-knit family, but she was especially close with her sisters Ellie and Veronica. And we are going to talk about both of them today in their search for Arely. So Arely was known among her family as a girly girl with a heart of gold, as well as a major coffee lover and a huge Starbucks junkie. Like her sisters remembered that her trips there were almost daily.

After graduating from high school, Arely completed an automotive mechanics technology program and was actually certified as an automotive specialist because she just had this very well-known love of cars and their inner workings.

As she entered her 20s, she was hired as a service advisor at My Chevrolet in Salinas, where she was reportedly everybody's favorite coworker just because she was so much fun to be around. But she also had this very admirable work ethic and professionalism to her.

On the job, Arely developed a passion for cars, eventually purchasing one of her own, which was a silver 2013 Honda Accord. She took great pride in caring for and fixing up her car. She even had it wrapped to be this very fluorescent kind of candy red. And especially because of its color, she was known around town for her car color.

and was said to always be cleaning it, working on it, or washing the exterior. Like her family called it her baby. She was so proud of her car that she started taking it to car shows and even became a member of a car club.

In the summer of 2022, 25-year-old Arely was keeping busy, having enrolled in classes at a local community college, and she was shifting careers into the medical field. So she was actually, you know, she was working at MyChevrolet, but she was working towards becoming an ultrasound technician. That is what she was going to school for. Ah.

At some point, her parents did split up and Arely moved into an apartment with her mom, Blanca, who absolutely loved having her daughter living with her and recalled fondly how she would go into her daughter's bedroom every morning to wake her up with a hug.

Her sisters remember Arely's predictable and very structured schedule. Almost every day, she would go to the gym, go to work, and then come back home to complete her schoolwork. You know, she was very responsible. She had this routine, and that routine is going to come into question here today. But despite her very busy schedule, she did find time to start dating somebody, a guy named Marcello.

Marcello was a photographer at a car show that Arely attended, and the two had just started dating before her disappearance. According to Arely's sisters, he lived in Napa, which as many of us know is in the Bay Area, but over two hours north of Salinas. So they were seeing each other when they could and enjoying getting to know each other. But again, this was so new, like her sister Ellie said that they'd only been out a few times and they weren't super serious yet.

So on the last day that she was seen, which was Thursday, September 22nd, 2022, Arely awoke early, leaving the house at 6.34 a.m., which, like Daphne said, was pretty usual for her to wake up early and just get her day started. But there is a discrepancy with this time, and we are going to go into that here shortly.

About 20 minutes after leaving the house, at 6:56 AM, she texted her sister Veronica saying, "Good morning, smiley face, I miss you and my baby. Love you." And here she was referring to Veronica's son, so her nephew, who was also her godson.

But by the time Veronica tried to text her back about two hours later, the texts weren't going through. Veronica continued to try to reach her, but started to panic a bit when she wasn't able to get a hold of Arelli at all that morning. Veronica responded at 8:53 a.m., but never heard back from Arelli.

Meanwhile, their other sister Ellie received a call from MyChevrolet to let her know that Arely hadn't made it in to work that morning. 25-year-old Arely was never one to miss a shift without warning, so her siblings and parents were quickly beginning to worry about where she had gone that morning and if something had happened to her.

Veronica texted her sister again at 11:01 a.m. and then sent like a whole slew of texts at 12:57 p.m. in addition to upwards of 30 phone calls. Her family called and texted her incessantly that day with no response whatsoever, which I really would have never willingly done. So her sisters headed to the apartment to kind of retrace her last steps at home, but nothing seemed out of place.

Their mom said that she and Arely had gone to bed as usual the night prior, and that neither of them had any guests or heard anything out of the ordinary. When Ellie opened the "Find My iPhone" app and checked Arely's location, it showed her stopped along Highway 1, just north of Big Sur, so over an hour away. Like, her location was just idle there, and it made no sense that it was, because with Arely working locally in Salinas,

There wouldn't be any reason for her to have driven over to Big Sur before her shift. Yeah, and for those who don't know, the 1 is the coastal scenic route in California with the 101 being slightly more inland, like along where Salinas is. So to get to Big Sur from Salinas, you have to drive to the coast, like a straight shot to the coast from Salinas.

And then you have to take the one to get down to Big Sur. So yeah, definitely weird for her location to be there. Again, because like you're saying, Heath, she worked right there in town in Salinas. Well, that's exactly why Ellie and her husband raced down there hoping to find her and just kind of get like a simple explanation for what was going on. Like they just kind of hoped that they would find her there.

But there, along the one, on a pullout for the highway boasting views from a towering cliff above the ocean, they spotted Arely's red Honda, which had been left near the Little Sur River Bridge, a little ways south of the famous Bigsby Bridge of Monterey County. Veronica said later, quote,

Yeah, and especially on a work morning. Like, going to Big Sur and driving back, even if she skipped the gym and she did leave at 5.30, she wouldn't have been home in time to go to work before her shift started. So, you know, it's not like it was her day off or something. It's not like it was the weekend and she felt like just driving down the coast. Like, she had...

an obligation that day to be at work and we are going to post photos of this stretch where her car was found and it's actually crazy because a google street view car drove by while her car was sitting there so if you go back to this exact spot where her car was and you go to september of 2022 you will see her car

It's on this little pull-off on the side of the road right along the coastline facing south, which is the direction coming from Salinas. So this is so strange because this highway is pretty busy. There's only one lane on both sides, but it is populated. And even in the Google Street View, there are two cars parked behind hers because, you know, it's a good spot to stop and take photos of the water.

One of the cars is a white Volkswagen and the other is a bluish silver Toyota. But there's no people standing around. Actually, there are a ton of cars driving up the highway. But both cars have people sitting in them. You can see on the street view that people are sitting in the cars that are sitting behind rallies.

However, Arely's windows are tinted so you can't see inside the car to know if anybody was inside when this Google driver passed by. And this is actually a really common thing for people to do on Highway 1. You know, there are a ton of pull-offs along the highway where you can just look at these beautiful views of the ocean. So it's pretty typical to see cars pulled over on these little pull-outs, these like scenic spots.

But it's so strange because there's just, you know, Arely's red car is sitting there, and then there's two other cars, like, placed right behind hers...

And nobody really seems to think anything of it because this is so typical. Yeah, absolutely. Which is why, in a way, for it to be there, it's not like it was in this very strange spot. It is when you consider what was on her agenda that day and the fact that this is nearly an hour away from her house. Like, there's no reason for her to be there. But nobody was like, why is this car here? It's not like it's in the way. It's not an obstacle. Right. If you just pulled up behind a random car in a spot like this,

you would not think anything of it. You would just go, oh, well, maybe they're off taking pictures or they're on a little hike or something. Yeah, or on their phone or having a snack or whatever. There's so many reasons why somebody would stop. But still, when her sisters got there, it didn't make any sense.

Now, when Ellie got to Arely's car, she noticed that it was locked with no signs of a struggle and inside were her phone, keys and wallet with her keys still in the ignition.

So that's concerning because the car was off, but the keys are in the ignition. The car is locked. So there's no way to get into the car unless you have another set of keys. And then all of her personal belongings, including her phone, are sitting inside. So automatically upon seeing this, they know that something is not right here. And another strange thing that Ellie noticed was that the car was not parked how a rally would have parked it.

Arelli's Honda had a customized air suspension system that would raise or lower the body of the vehicle. And Arelli would always leave it slammed, that's the term, or lowered all the way to the ground when she parked it. But it was left in its just regular setting. So again, not only are the keys locked inside with all of her belongings, but...

the car is off and not parked in the typical way that she would have parked it. And on top of this, the driver's seat was pushed back farther than a rally normally had a position because a rally was five feet, five inches tall, and the seat was pushed back to accommodate a taller person.

Now, again, her sisters insist that there's no reason Arely would have been there that day. And we completely agree, especially on a work morning. There are hiking trails nearby. But other than that, the only feasible reason that she would have stopped is

was to admire the view and take pictures. But on her way to where? And how would she have vanished? And like I said, this is a pull-off spot, but there's no other reason that somebody would park here and leave their car for an extended period of time.

It's kind of like a wide shoulder. And there's even a sign right behind where her car is that it says that you're not allowed to loiter or trespass there because there's kind of this little fence along that cliffside so that you can't just walk down to the beach. It's not a tall cliff at all. We are going to post photos. But yeah, you're not allowed to just...

hang out here for an extended period of time. And there are no stores in the area. There's nothing to walk to. So something was really off. Now, her sisters claimed that she had been to the area to hike in the past. But again, there was no reason that she would have headed there on an otherwise routine morning when she was supposed to be headed to work that Thursday. She would have just gone to the gym before her shift like always.

So while Ellie and her husband discovered Arely's car, Veronica and her husband headed to the Salinas Police Department to report her missing. Believing Arely's family when they said that something was amiss, the Salinas Police Department mounted their search efforts immediately.

When they dug deeper, they found that her bank account had not been touched since she was last seen and her phone hadn't been used since early that morning. But authorities have not released what, if anything, they found while analyzing her phone. So I'm sure there are a lot of details that we don't know at this time.

And the reason that we know when Arely left for work is because she was seen on surveillance footage leaving the upstairs apartment that she shared with her mom on Roosevelt Street in Salinas on the morning that she disappeared, heading out to the parking lot at 6.34 a.m.

Two other cars were in the parking lot leaving as she descended the stairs and nothing appeared to be amiss. Like no one was following her and no one appeared to be with her in the car. But like I said, her windows were tinted, so it would be very difficult to be sure.

But really quick, I want to go into that time discrepancy that Heath was talking about earlier. So the video is actually timestamped to be at 534 a.m. I just said 634. Heath said it earlier. But for some reason, 634 is heavily reported online.

I actually emailed her family about this, hoping to get an answer. But if I do get that information, I will go ahead and edit this part of the episode. But yeah, it would definitely make more sense for her to leave at 534 since that was more typical for her.

So we're not sure what time it actually was. If the camera was wrong or a slew of sources are misreporting the time. I will also mention that I have seen her sisters talk about this and how we're going to talk about this. Sorry, I don't want to keep getting ahead of ourselves, but that it was unusual that she left at 630 ish because she usually left around 530. So I think 530 is probably more accurate, but it's very unclear.

Now, let's go back to that surveillance footage, because upon seeing the surveillance footage, her sisters noted something pretty odd. She was in plain clothes and not her regular work attire, clad in a black hoodie, black tennis shoes and black leggings with her hair pulled into a bun.

She could have been headed to the gym, obviously, as we mentioned, but her sisters added that she was leaving too early for work, but not early enough to go to the gym, get a workout in, and then still be able to make it to work on time. Yeah, and this is if she did leave at 6.34. Yeah, because when she would go to the gym before work, she would usually leave around 5.30 a.m. to be able to exercise, shower, and then get ready for the day, and

and still make it to my Chevrolet by 7:30 a.m. She also lived only 10 minutes from where she worked, so why she was leaving so early when she wasn't headed for the gym was a mystery. Unless she woke up late and decided to get maybe a quick workout in, or again, sorry to keep saying this, it was 5:34 and she was gonna go to the gym and get a full workout in before going to work very, very close by.

But, if that wasn't the case, detectives wondered if perhaps she met up with somebody early that morning.

They started by contacting local hospitals and police departments, but they couldn't find any record of her. So, working from the site of the discovery of her car, law enforcement launched drones with infrared cameras which can detect body heat, just looking to maybe see if she had fallen down the cliffside or possibly gone hiking after all and got injured. Helicopters and planes also circled overhead, looking for any trace of her in the water or along the roads.

Scent dogs were deployed to track her as well, but even with all of these efforts, they just found absolutely nothing. Arely's beloved car was taken in and forensically processed, but detectives have not released what, if anything, they found inside. Again, a lot of the information in this case, they're really trying to keep very close to themselves at this point.

25 people were interviewed in connection with her disappearance, including the man that she was dating, Marcello. But none of them resulted in a suspect for her disappearance or really anything at all. And remember, he lived in Napa, so he lived north, but her car was found south in Big Sur. So it's not like it was found anywhere near his home, just in case anybody's wondering. Right. It was found even further away. Right. You know.

So as time went by and the end of the year loomed, the reality was starting to set in for her family that something very bad could have and most likely happen to Arely. Because they knew that she wouldn't just run away like that. Absolutely not. Veronica said in an interview with NBC News, quote,

And then Ellie added, quote, Ellie says her mom, Blanca, who was already in fragile health, was struggling greatly with the news of her disappearance. Blanca said sadly, quote,

Arelli's dad agreed with this, saying, quote, Well, sadly, the only other development in the case came in the form of another surveillance video, but police are choosing not to release it to the public for reasons known only to the investigation.

What we do know about the second video of surveillance footage is that it shows what is believed to be Arely's car passing by a general store in a beach town near Big Sur around 7.30 a.m. And just to clarify, because earlier we mentioned that there are no stores around where her car was found.

But obviously, you know, this is a beach town, not where her car was found. So I just wanted to mention that in case anybody was kind of confused about this. There are beach towns with stores around, but just not in that general vicinity of where her car was discovered. Yes, this was just when she was passing by, or at least her car was passing by. And this was about an hour, allegedly, possibly two hours after she left her home.

and 30 minutes after she texted her sister Veronica saying good morning. This was also when she was due at work. She was supposed to be at work at 7.30 that day, but her car was heading in the opposite direction towards where it was later found.

Again, because the windows were so dark, it would be challenging to tell if it was actually Arely driving the car or not. But that would obviously be very good to know who was behind it because many of us wonder if someone had possibly abducted Arely and driven her car to that spot to abandon it. Which really I think would be so strange considering how busy the highway is in general. Like someone would so easily be seen, but...

At the same time, we don't know of any witness sightings where someone noticed Arely or anybody else getting out of her red car along Highway 1. Because also, if somebody was just walking down the highway, that would be very obvious. You know, you would take note of that. Yeah, you definitely feel like if that was the case, there would have had to have been another person with another vehicle, right? Yeah, somebody to pick them up.

or somebody who was trailing the car there, and it's possible that they switched vehicles when no cars were driving by, because, yeah, it was still pretty early in the morning, you know, 7.30. Yeah, definitely. And with it being kind of early like that, I don't know how busy Highway 1 would be in that area, particularly.

Maybe there were a lot of cars driving by that morning or maybe there just weren't. Like there is one theory that we're going to get into. Sorry, I know we always say that, but there is a theory that both Daphne and I have that I think is pretty plausible. Well, it's really weird because the footage that we're just talking about of her outside the general store or sorry, not her outside of it, but her car driving by it.

is somehow the only known footage of her car passing through before reaching its final destination, which is so weird to me because she would have had to have driven through Salinas, through other areas. There are other cars, but nobody sent in any like dash cam footage or anything like that. But that spot is 20 minutes from the general store that her car was seen passing.

And it is believed that her car reached this spot, this final destination on Highway 1, between 7.50 and 8.45 a.m.,

Now, Arely's car plays a very unique role in her disappearance because, of course, it's really the only evidence that we have in her case of anything happening to her. But also, it was so unique and recognizable. So it's possible that she was targeted specifically for her car or perhaps because of it. She proudly showed it off on social media and at car shows. And many in the local car community came to her for service at MyChevrolet.com.

So she may have had a stalker who kidnapped her that morning because she was more known in the area. Because of her knowledge of cars, some also wonder if she may have been roped into helping a passerby as a Good Samaritan, but was instead taken advantage of.

If she had pulled over to assist someone in need, she may have fallen prey to kidnapping. And then her car was merely left there so as not to be tracked, which still does not explain why she would have been in Big Sur if she did go there willingly. Because by the way, police have confirmed that they do not at all believe that this was a case of suicide. And real quick before we move on, this was the theory that I was talking about. It seems like the most plausible theory

Obviously, we still don't know why she was in that Big Sur area, but I think just given the fact that, you know, if there would have had to have been two drivers, somebody to pick up, you know, this other person that was driving Aureli's car, possibly with her in the back or whatever, that's why I believe it's very possible that she pulled over and

Somebody was asking for help. She was kidnapped into that person's car and driven out of the area. It's so hard for me in a way to believe that this is a crime of opportunity, though, because like we're saying, if there were two people involved, yeah, maybe they were going out looking for somebody else.

And they happen to find Arely. But it doesn't make any... Like, I can't wrap my head around Arely willingly going to Big Sur that morning. She went to the gym and to work every morning in Salinas. I can't figure out why she wouldn't do that that day. So part of me wonders if instead...

She was targeted. She did have a stalker and they were watching her outside of her apartment, knew her schedule and somehow targeted her. But then of course she would need to get out of her car, you know? So if they know that she drove away from her complex and have no trace of her getting out of her car after that, was somebody waiting in her car possibly? There's so many questions. There's, yeah, there's a lot of questions. And for those of you kind of wondering about this, this area, um,

The fact that they had drones and they were searching overhead with, you know, helicopters and stuff like that...

It feels like if she was still in that area, they would have found some trace of her because they've searched that entire area extensively. Oh, yeah. I completely agree. That's why I feel like I personally feel like somebody abandoned her car there. They drove it there. They made her drive it there and then put her in a different vehicle. Sorry. Yeah.

I just can't see her driving there herself. I just can't figure it out. Yeah, because again, it's over an hour south. There would be no reason for her to go there. As her sisters did mention, she had been in that area previously and had hiked there before.

But why that day? You know what I mean? Like that's that random Thursday morning. Right. And if she were meeting somebody, if she wasn't going to go to the gym and she was going to meet somebody before work, who would that have been? And this is why it's really important to know what was on her phone. Who was the last person she made contact with? We don't have that information. Police does. Right. So I don't know.

It's really hard to speculate when you have so little to work off of, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree here. But let's go back to that Google Maps car driving by because it captured her car there with the two cars parked behind her at the time, both of which were identified by their license plates.

Now, the owners of each of these cars were tracked down and they were questioned, and they even offered up the pictures that they took that day for analysis, because they had stopped in that spot, of course, to take pictures of the sea. But none of the photos featured Arely or even her car. Yeah, because like you said, it was so common, they wouldn't have even taken note, probably, of her car there, even though it was red.

it's you and I have done that so many times driving up the coast in California and Oregon. Yeah. It's like, we don't notice who's around us because everybody's doing the same thing. Well, yeah. And why would you just randomly take a picture of somebody else's car? Like that would be just so weird. Yeah. So that was just a total dead end. And also there was no evidence connected to a Raleigh's disappearance in the natural landscape captured in these photographs. So it's not like,

you know, like somebody took a picture of the ocean and then there was, you know, a rally down there like on the beach or something. Yeah, or like a weird guy. But it's really cool that they were able... I mean, again, it is so crazy to me that this Google driver happened to be right there that day. We couldn't figure out what time they drove by. That information isn't listed on the internet. But...

Yeah, I mean, definitely cool that they were able to track down these cars and see if they had captured anything of importance. But I also think that that is one of the most eerie elements about this story as well. So true.

Well, after two months passed with no answers, Arelli's family and friends held a protest outside of the Salinas Police Department. Just kind of feeling like they weren't, you know, hearing enough information or any real developments. Arelli's niece, Alma Marquez, demanded, quote, "'Why hasn't she been found? Arelli deserves to be found and brought back to her family. She is the third person of color to go missing in Salinas. We want answers.'"

Arely could be your daughter, your sister, and your mom. In my case, my aunt. How many more women need to go missing for Selena's police department to respond to our cries for help? Both of her parents, as well as Ellie and Veronica, also spoke at this protest.

Robert Felice, who's the Salinas police chief, met with the family beforehand and claimed that he was pleading with the city for more officers so that he could allocate more manpower toward Arelli's case. He also promised to answer any questions that they had, though many details have been kept private in this investigation, as we have mentioned.

The families held multiple other demonstrations to raise awareness about Arely's case, including at their community's rodeo. Just desperate to get the word out on her disappearance and receive some solid leads. Commander Brian Johnson with the Salinas Police Department maintained in an interview, quote, We've interviewed 62 people over the course of this investigation, and we continually...

If we get another person to talk to, we do do that too. But we've interviewed about everybody that we possibly could as far as we know and have knowledge of, using contacts in her phone, through family, anything like that. And unfortunately, we couldn't come up with anything. The Salinas Police Department maintains that they're doing everything that they can, and that her disappearance is still being investigated. But over two years after Arely vanished,

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What is going on true crime fans? There's a new podcast that we think you guys are gonna love called Fear Thy Neighbor. On Fear Thy Neighbor from i-D, hear true stories about the victims of deadly neighborhood disputes. As you guys know, most violent crimes that capture the public's imagination are about serial killers or crimes of passion. But what happens when the person you fear the most is living right next door?

Each episode focuses on a different town where neighbors fall out over what should be minor and resolvable issues. So you get to hear these true stories told by the victims.

their families, and their neighbors, featuring real 911 calls and surveillance archives. And this is genuinely one of the most interesting tropes to me because I've had so many neighbors that I kind of look at sideways. You know, we've all had that weird neighbor, and it's scary to think that something could actually happen. Absolutely. As true crime fans, you guys know exactly what we're talking about.

We've covered a lot of cases where people are killed by their neighbors. So listen to Fear Thy Neighbor wherever you get your podcasts. A case that is frequently linked to O'Reilly's is that of Kaylee Gamble.

Like Arely, Kaylee disappeared in 2022, but Kaylee's body was found two weeks later, right before Arely disappeared. Kaylee Alyssa Gamble was born on May 1st, 2002 in Palestine, Texas to her mom, Jennifer, and dad, James.

And she was later joined by twin brothers, Kobe and Corey, and another brother named Jameel. Nicknamed KK by her family, she was described as fearless and was known to do anything to bring a smile to someone's face. Her obituary reads, quote,

She strived to be the best person she could be. She was always willing to help out a friend in any way she could, mostly with her great advice. She was wise beyond her years. She will be terribly missed by all she touched.

Kaylee eventually moved to the West Coast with her mom, with whom she was living in 2022, just like Arely, when she was 20 years old. On the evening of Wednesday, August 17th, 2022, so just over a month before Arely went missing, around 5.30 p.m., Kaylee told her mom, Jennifer, that she was heading out with a friend for a few hours.

Jennifer knew and trusted this friend and thought nothing of it. Later explaining, quote, she's like, no, no, I know, mom. I'm just going to be gone for a couple hours and I'll be home. And I'm like, okay, fine. No worries. According to Jennifer, she only imposed one hard and fast rule on her kids. No matter what happens, even if there was a disagreement or they're in trouble, call home to let her know that you're okay.

Because of this, Jennifer knew that it was not in her daughter's nature to go off the grid. Also, it was particularly bad timing because the night that she disappeared, Kaylee's phone happened to stop working. But Jennifer says that she wasn't worried. You know, Kaylee always found a way to get in touch with her to check in and let her know where she was and what she was up to.

The evening of August 17th, 2022, Jennifer left home shortly after her daughter did and was mildly surprised when she returned home a few hours later to find that her daughter had not returned. But she didn't really start to worry until the next morning. Jennifer later said, quote,

Now, her daughter had plenty of friends, Jennifer said, and she assumed that Kaylee had been with one of them and would be back soon. But she added, quote, nobody had seen her. Nobody had talked to her. It didn't seem right at all because she was very social. More suspiciously, the friend that Kaylee was supposed to see that evening hadn't seen her at all.

When Jennifer called him, she said, quote, he didn't know anything about picking her up. We don't know who she went with.

So, you know, obviously this makes us wonder if Kaylee was going to go hang out with somebody that she didn't want to tell anybody about. And she wanted to make her kind of put her mom at ease by saying she was going to see somebody that she wasn't. Or if the person that she was supposed to see is maybe not being completely truthful. Who knows? Very, very true. Yeah. Either one of these could be the case, but yeah,

Either way, nobody had heard from Kaylee and when the following morning came, which was August 19th, it had been nearly two days since she had seen her daughter. So Jennifer reported Kaylee missing. To her frustration, another two weeks passed with no sign of her and no answers.

Jennifer drove all around Salinas, combing the streets and sidewalks looking for her daughter and continued to contact anyone and everyone that she knew just in hopes that somebody would hear from her. But on August 30th, 2022, in the middle of the night, Detective Aris Wilson with the Monterey County Sheriff's Office called Jennifer to alert her that he had news about her daughter's case.

Jennifer remembered sadly, "He asked if he could come by and talk to me about it, and I said sure, and he happens to already be here. So I went to the door and he came in. He and another detective was with him, and they told me that they found her body in Big Sur."

So this is weird because that means within a month of each other, these two young women go missing from Salinas, one whose car was found in Big Sur and one whose body was found in Big Sur. And their apartments are only a four minute drive from each other. So they lived incredibly close by.

Well, also, the Salinas population in 2022 was around 165,000 people, so not a ton, and Big Sur has just a population of 2,000 or so. And on top of this, Kaylee's body had been found fairly close to where Arely's car had been parked on the day she disappeared.

Detective Aris explained, quote,

Aris continued saying, quote, So same kind of situation. There's a pull-off in both of these areas where Kaylee's body is found and then, of course, where Relly's car was found. Both right on Highway 1. Exactly. Exactly.

So, Kaylee's body was pulled from the water near a tunnel called Paul's Slide, only about 25 miles or 40 kilometers, aka a 40-minute drive, from where Arely's car was found. Like Arely's family, Jennifer knew that her daughter had been to Big Sur with friends, even saying that Kaylee had visited quite a bit, but that she doesn't know how or why her daughter wound up there this time, and more importantly, whom she had been with.

Detective Eris Wilson announced that there was a, quote, "...significant amount of evidence in Kaylee's case." But, just like in Arelli's investigation, they've kept those details pretty close to the vest. They did announce, however, that her case is being investigated as a homicide.

Many people, including the women's own families, have pointed out the similarities between the disturbing disappearance of 25-year-old Arely Garcia and the unsolved murder of 20-year-old Kaylee Gamble.

They were both from Salinas, like we mentioned, living just under a mile from each other. And they disappeared just five weeks apart. I mean, 165,000 people in Salinas is not a ton of people. It's a fairly normal-sized city, a smaller-sized city if you compare it to

Right. Right.

And they're also both women of color. Yeah, exactly. There are a lot of similarities. And a woman named Sarah Rubin, who is a journalist that covered both cases for the local newspaper, the Monterey County Weekly, recalled, quote,

Detective Eris Wilson has stated that the Monterey Sheriff's Office does not believe that Arelli's disappearance is connected to Kaylee's murder. But obviously without concrete answers for either case, it is always a possibility. Jennifer, who is Kaylee's mom, did agree with this conclusion that they may not be involved, but added, "...they both deserve as much attention as possible."

Jennifer believes her daughter was killed on the night that she disappeared, but can't fathom who was behind her murder. She has called the last two years of her life a living nightmare, saying, quote, I still can't wrap my head around it, to be honest. I mean, I know it's real, but I'm still waiting for her to come home.

She admits to struggling under the weight of guilt and the grief, saying, quote,

So I have to remember her happy smile, the way she used to call me, make me crazy, you know, and all those kinds of things. Someone has to know something. I'll never heal, but having closure and justice will help me process.

Jennifer claims that her only solace in the darkness of losing her daughter is Kaylee's brothers. Just two years younger than Kaylee, Jennifer remembers fondly, quote, Two years later, Kaylee's case remains open, but there have been no developments.

Arely's sisters are still holding out hope that she's alive and feel that it's possible that she's being held somewhere. Because human trafficking really is an issue in many California cities that are located near the water and also along highways. Allie maintains, quote,

This year, on the two-year anniversary of Arelli's disappearance, another vigil was held to spread awareness and urge the public to come forward with information. They marched down Main Street together in solidarity, dressed in pink, which is Arelli's favorite color. The police department has maintained that they are actively investigating the case, and Arelli is still classified as an at-risk missing.

and Salinas Police have continued to review over 150 pages of case information. Shortly before the two-year anniversary of Arely's disappearance, the Salinas Police Department announced, quote, We have not stopped, nor will we, until we have answers about the disappearance of Arely Garcia. They've maintained that they're still pursuing answers in the matter of Arely's disappearance, but that they simply have had no leads.

But her family is considering hiring a private investigator to retrace her final movements. They told their local news station that if she's still out there, their message for Arely would be that her mom misses her, her sister misses her, they all love her, and that they want her back home. If she's out there, know that she has not been forgotten.

know that they're praying for her safe return. Blanca pleads, please, if anyone knows anything, please let us know if you've seen my daughter. Please call police. If you have any information about the murder of Kaylee Gamble, please call the Monterey County Sheriff's Office at 831-755-3700.

Arely is 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighs about 150 pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes. At the time of her disappearance, she is believed to have been wearing a black hoodie, black leggings, and black tennis shoes. She has a chest dermal piercing. There is still a $10,000 reward being offered for information.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Arely Garcia, please call Detective Edwin Cruz at the Salinas Police Department at 831-758-7393. You can also call anonymously at 831-775-4222.

Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Arely's family really needs answers. So please make sure that you share this episode. Talk to people about it. And if anybody out there that's been listening to this episode knows anything about this situation, let us know in the comments.

Please come forward. Absolutely. These are the cases that we really love covering because, you know, this happened very recently, only two years ago. Her family is still looking for answers every single day. And I just truly believe that if we share her story, somebody very well could come forward with some pertinent information. As we know, her car was last seen and found last.

along a busy highway. So did somebody see her getting out? Somebody else getting out? Her being put into a different car? It is so possible. So thank you guys for tuning in. Check out our socials for photos and share her missing poster, please. All right, guys. So with that, for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. ♪

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