Nancy Garcia
- The Find Me Project
- Aug 19
- 11 min read
Updated: Sep 10
Case Information
Name: Nancy Garcia
Missing Since: May 19, 2018
Missing Age: 28
Missing From: Asheboro, North Carolina
Biological Sex: Female
Height: 5' 0"
Weight: 100 lbs
Race / Ethnicity: Hispanic Latino
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Black
Distinctive Physical Features: Small tattoo believed to be on Nancy's right hand on her ring finger.
Clothing & Accessories: N/A
Transportation: Burgundy 2001 Chevrolet Impala - NC Plates DFD2191
External Link: Click Here To Open
Circumstances of Disappearance
On a warm Saturday in May 2018, 28-year-old Nancy Garcia was celebrating at a child’s birthday party with her infant daughter by her side. Friends recall that she seemed happy and engaged that day, nothing out of the ordinary. As the afternoon sun faded, no one at the gathering could have guessed that this devoted young mother was about to vanish without a trace. Within 24 hours, Nancy would be gone, leaving behind a perplexing trail of clues, a heartbroken family, and a community grasping for answers.
The very next day, Sunday, May 20, 2018, Nancy took an unexpected turn in her routine. Around lunchtime, she brought her six-month-old baby girl to the child’s father (Nancy’s ex-boyfriend) at his home on East Balfour Avenue in Asheboro. She also visited her ex’s sister that day and urgently asked his relatives to care for the baby, saying she needed to leave town immediately. Nancy claimed her mother in Mexico was gravely ill and that she had to rush to be by her side. It was an unusual announcement that caught everyone off guard. After entrusting her daughter to the ex’s family, Nancy drove away in her burgundy 2001 Chevrolet Impala and was never seen again .
From the very start, something didn’t add up. When Asheboro police and Nancy’s friends reached out to her family in Guanajuato, Mexico, they learned that Nancy’s mother was not sick at all, nor was she expecting a visit. In fact, Nancy had spoken to her mother just a week prior, as she did habitually each week, and hadn’t mentioned any emergency trips or travel plans. Nancy’s mother was stunned by the story. She had no idea her daughter had intended to come to Mexico. As days passed with no word from Nancy, it became painfully clear that the excuse about an ill mother had been a ruse or misunderstanding. But why would Nancy fabricate such a story?
Those closest to Nancy never believed for a second that she would simply run off voluntarily, at least not without her baby. By all accounts, Nancy was a devoted mother who focused her attention on her infant daughter, Natalia, especially given the baby’s fragile start in life as a premature newborn. A coworker and friend told police how passionately Nancy cared for her child. She would rush out of work the moment her shift ended each day to reunite with her little girl. Leaving her daughter behind, even for a short time, was totally out of character. “It’s very unusual for a mother to drop off a small child of that age and just leave,” one Asheboro police captain remarked, reflecting the general sense of disbelief. Nancy had made no mention of any travel plans to her friends or colleagues beforehand, and she certainly hadn’t indicated that something was wrong in her life. All of it led to a frightening question, if Nancy didn’t leave by choice, what really happened to her?
Nancy’s last interactions that Sunday only deepen the mystery. According to María Martinez, the mother of Nancy’s ex-boyfriend, Nancy dropped off the baby that day under the pretense that she had to go to work, promising to return later that afternoon. “She handed me the baby to take care of, but at no moment did she say she wouldn’t be coming back,” the woman later told authorities. Nancy’s ex’s family fully expected her to pick up her daughter in a few hours for the baby’s usual breastfeeding time, but Nancy never returned. When Nancy failed to show up at her job the next day and the day after, her coworkers grew concerned fast. Juan and his girlfriend (who also worked with Nancy) tried calling and texting her repeatedly that Monday, and even left notes at her apartment door when she didn’t answer. By May 23, just three days after Nancy was last seen, these friends reported her missing and asked police to do a welfare check at Nancy’s apartment. Nancy was nowhere to be found. Her apartment offered no signs of struggle and no hints of where she’d gone. It was as if she had simply slipped out of her life, leaving only perplexity in her wake.
As investigators dug into Nancy Garcia’s disappearance, they found a case that was as baffling as it was alarming. Initially, there were no obvious signs of foul play. No crime scene, no witness reports of an abduction, yet nothing about Nancy’s actions suggested a careful plan to disappear either. It was a puzzle with pieces that refused to fit. Detectives obtained court orders for Nancy’s bank and phone records, hoping for leads. These revealed that Nancy’s phone had placed a few calls in the hours after she left her baby, including calls to an out-of-state number. Who she contacted and what was said remains closely held by police, but it showed that some communication took place after she drove off. Investigators also discovered the last transaction Nancy made. She used her debit card to buy gasoline at a local Asheboro gas station on May 20, presumably fueling up for a drive. This would turn out to be the final trace of her financial or physical trail that day.
Nancy’s maroon Chevy Impala vanished along with her, and this missing vehicle became one of the most crucial pieces of the puzzle. Police immediately alerted border authorities and airports. No record was ever found of Nancy’s car crossing into Mexico, and no plane tickets under her name were flagged at local airports. The car simply never turned up. It carried North Carolina plate DFD-2191, a detail plastered on missing person flyers, yet years later that license plate has not been spotted. To investigators, the absence of the car was a red flag. If Nancy had been harmed or met with an accident, the car might be hidden in a ravine or body of water. If she left on her own, perhaps she switched vehicles or someone helped her. Either way, finding that Impala could unlock the whole mystery, and searches for it have been exhaustive.
In the months after Nancy disappeared, a few digital clues emerged, though each answer seemed only to start new questions. In January 2020, nearly a year and a half later, Asheboro Police announced they had finally accessed Nancy’s personal Google account, which logged some of her movements via location history. What they found was intriguing. On May 19, the day before she vanished, Nancy’s Google Maps data showed her navigating to that child’s birthday party, exactly as friends had described. That confirmation at least proved Nancy’s weekend began normally. But on May 20, the data revealed an unexpected detour. Nancy had used Google Maps to get directions to a car dealership in Madison, North Carolina, on the same day she disappeared. No one in Nancy’s circle had ever mentioned her planning to visit a car lot, and this was brand-new information to police. Detectives rushed to that Madison dealership as soon as they learned of it, hoping to find any sign that Nancy had been there or to learn why she went. That lead fizzled. Employees and records at the dealership turned up nothing useful, and whatever business brought Nancy there remains unknown.
The most haunting discovery, however, came from Nancy’s Google account activity months after she was gone. In January 2019, about eight months post-disappearance, there was a sudden login to Nancy’s Google account from a location in rural Mexico, roughly 30 miles from her hometown in Guanajuato. Investigators traced the login to what appeared to be a small shack in the countryside when viewed on Google Maps. Could it be that Nancy herself had somehow made it back near her hometown and accessed her account there? Or was someone else, perhaps in possession of her phone or passwords, logging in and unintentionally revealing their location? Asheboro police alerted authorities in Mexico and asked for their help checking the spot, but frustratingly nothing came of the lead. Family members swore they did not have Nancy’s login credentials, leaving detectives perplexed as to who accessed her account from that remote area. This eerie digital trace, a lone ping from Nancy’s online life emanating from a place she was never known to go only deepened the mystery. It’s a clue that suggests Nancy’s story may have continued beyond North Carolina, but exactly how and why remains a matter of conjecture.
Through all of this, police maintained that they had no concrete evidence of foul play, yet they never ruled it out. In fact, investigators expressed open puzzlement at every turn. Early on, Captain Richard Thompson of the Asheboro Police noted how none of Nancy’s friends or family recalled her saying anything about a big trip or plans to leave. The circumstances were so contradictory. A caring mother acting in ways that made no sense. That detectives were left “puzzled” and carefully interviewing everyone in Nancy’s orbit for hidden clues. They even enlisted federal agencies. At one point the department reached out to the FBI for assistance, though according to Capt. Thompson, the FBI did not end up providing help on the case. Despite the frustrating lack of breakthroughs, local law enforcement insists that this is not a dormant cold case. “I don’t think it’s a cold case by any means,” Detective Jeremy Suddeth, the lead investigator, said in 2020. “It’s still very active. I ask that if anyone knows anything to please come talk to me.”. The passage of time has not dimmed the determination to find answers.
While detectives chased data and leads, Nancy’s family was living a nightmare of uncertainty. Her mother, María Garcia, has counted every agonizing day since Nancy disappeared. “She’s kept count,” an NBC Dateline report noted at the two-year mark. María knew that Sunday, September 20, 2020 marked exactly 854 days without her daughter . To María, each day is not just a number but a trial of suffering. “No sé por qué le hicieron esto a mi niña,” she lamented in Spanish, “I don’t know why they did this to my girl”, anguished by the possibility that someone harmed Nancy. In the absence of answers, the pain of not knowing is excruciating. María has described life since Nancy’s disappearance as “un infierno”, a living hell, spent crying every single day and praying to God for any news of her daughter. Four times over the years, María has traveled from their hometown in Mexico to Asheboro, North Carolina. Despite language barriers and the vast distance, this desperate mother has made herself a fixture at the Asheboro Police Department, hoping that face-to-face conversations might shake loose new information or renew the urgency of the search.
The rest of Nancy’s family, including her four siblings, share in the grief and uncertainty. One relative even traveled from Chicago to Asheboro in the early days of the case to speak with police and to spend time with Nancy’s infant daughter. That baby, little Natalia, has been a ray of light in an otherwise dark time. Now a young girl, Natalia is being raised by her father’s family, and she remains the living link to Nancy that brings some comfort to those who miss Nancy most. María cherishes her granddaughter as the most vivid piece of her daughter she has left, calling Natalia “the best and most alive memory I have of Nancy”. But there is sorrow in that. Natalia will grow up without her mother’s warmth, and one day she will have questions about where her mamá went. For now, the child is a symbol of hope, a reason for the family to keep fighting for answers, so that Nancy can be found or at least her memory honored with truth.
Nancy’s disappearance has reverberated beyond her family to touch the entire Asheboro community, especially its Latino and immigrant families who know how tight-knit life can be. Asheboro is a small city, and when Nancy vanished it galvanized neighbors and friends into action. In the summer of 2018, as Nancy’s case grabbed local headlines, volunteers organized search parties, prayer vigils, and door-to-door flyer distributions. The area’s Hispanic community, in particular, rallied around the Garcia family. Multiple vigils were held, and residents blanketed neighborhoods with missing-person posters bearing Nancy’s smiling face. They met with detectives, sharing any tips or ideas, and pleaded for the investigation to press on energetically. The outpouring of support was a testament to how loved and valued Nancy is by those who know her. “La comunidad entera… se abocó a su búsqueda,” one Spanish-language report observed, the entire community devoted itself to looking for her.
Years later, that communal dedication has not faded. Strangers who heard Nancy’s story have been moved to help. In 2024, a Myrtle Beach man named Jason Souhrada brought his homemade sonar device to Asheboro to scan local ponds for any sign of Nancy’s Impala. Towing his rig behind a boogie board, Souhrada spent his free time checking murky waters that official teams hadn’t searched, hoping to locate a submerged car or clue. “It looks like I may have found something,” he remarked after one such scan, though he cautioned he wasn’t confident yet. He passed the coordinates of an underwater object to the lead detective, and authorities planned to follow up with a dive team. It’s precisely this kind of grassroots effort and community partnership that gives Nancy’s loved ones strength, knowing that people out there, even those who never met Nancy, care enough to keep looking.
María Garcia herself has worked tirelessly to keep her daughter’s story alive in the public eye. At candlelight vigils, she speaks of Nancy as “una mujer luchadora y madre ejemplar”, a fighter and an exemplary mother who dreamed of giving her little girl a good life. Surrounded by neighbors holding candles and photos, María’s message is always the same, please don’t forget Nancy. “¡Quiero saber de ella, que me ayuden a saber dónde está!” she cried out to a local reporter, “I want to know about her, for someone to help me know where she is!”. The ache in her voice is palpable as she describes daily anguish mixed with a stubborn hope that someone, somewhere knows something. “Esta es mi vida,” María says of the search for her daughter, “every day crying, every day asking God for her”.
Over seven years have passed since Nancy Garcia stepped out of her everyday life and into the realm of mystery. Her case remains unsolved and deeply unsettling. Officially, Nancy is simply listed as a missing person. There is no evidence, to date, that definitively points to a crime, an accident, or a voluntary disappearance. This limbo of uncertainty has spawned numerous theories, each with its own set of troubling implications. Did Nancy truly plan an escape from her life? Those who knew her find it hard to believe she would abandon her beloved daughter, especially without a word to anyone. Could she have been overwhelmed by postpartum struggles or other pressures, leading her to flee? If so, why have there been no verified sightings of her, and why hasn’t she reached out for her child in all these years? On the other hand, if someone else orchestrated Nancy’s disappearance, who was it and what was their motive? Police have not named any suspects, and by all accounts Nancy had no known enemies. Her recent breakup with her ex-boyfriend was amicable enough that they shared baby care duties. He cooperated fully with investigators and has not been implicated in any wrongdoing. Internet sleuths and community members have wondered if there’s more to that story, perhaps an undisclosed conflict or jealousy, or if Nancy met someone new who led her into danger. Every scenario, from a carefully planned departure to a tragic foul play, has been contemplated, but none can be proven with the facts at hand.
Certain facts stick out as flags that beg for explanation. For one, Nancy’s car is still missing, a key piece of physical evidence. If that Impala could be found, whether hidden underwater or stashed in a garage somewhere, it might hold the secrets of Nancy’s fate. Then there is the matter of the out-of-state phone call Nancy made just after dropping off her baby. Who was on the other end of that call? Did Nancy reach out to a friend for help, arrange a rendezvous with someone, or was the call unrelated? Investigators have kept those details close, but any connection outside North Carolina raises the possibility that Nancy’s disappearance may have had broader reach. And of course, the most tantalizing and troubling clue, the login from Mexico. Was it really Nancy who accessed her Google account from a humble shack near her old hometown? If so, why would she not immediately contact her waiting mother, who lives just miles away from that very spot? If it wasn’t Nancy, then someone else, possibly someone involved in her disappearance ventured near her family’s community with her phone or password. That idea sends a chill down the spine, suggesting someone might have wanted to create a digital smokescreen or simply traveled along Nancy’s known ties. Somebody, as one online commenter put it, is lying, either Nancy had secret intentions that Sunday or someone in her circle hasn’t told the whole truth about what happened. Until more evidence emerges, these questions hover, refusing to let Nancy’s story rest.
Intelligence Overview
Pending Completion
Findings
Pending Completion
Case Contact Information
Case Contact Entity: Asheboro Police Department
Case Contact Name: Katherine Kallam, Detective
Case Contact Info: (336) 626-1300
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