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in: Arizona, 2001, Abduction,
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Jacqueline Vasquez

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Real Name: Jacqueline Vasquez
Nicknames: No known nicknames
Location: Avondale, Arizona
Date: May 6, 2001

Bio[]

Occupation: Minor
Date Of Birth: January 14, 2001
Height: 3'0"
Weight: 13 lbs.
Characteristics: Hispanic female with black hair and brown eyes. She has a heart-shaped birthmark on her upper right arm. She was last seen wearing a diaper and a white jumpsuit with snaps extending down the legs. She was sitting in a white infant carrier with a green and white striped cushion.

Case[]

Details: Three-month-old Jacqueline Vasquez is the daughter of twenty-one-year-old Jorge Vasquez and his eighteen-year-old wife, Olivia Castaneda. The family lived in Phoenix, Arizona. On May 6, 2001, Olivia took Jacqueline and her two-year-old daughter, Nayeli, to a swap meet on 123rd Avenue and Buckeye Road in Avondale, just outside of Phoenix. They were dropped off by Jorge at around 11:15am.
Olivia carried Jacqueline in her car seat and held Nayeli by her hand as they walked into the swap meet. Before meeting her mother inside, Olivia needed to use the restroom. After a few minutes, she finally found a portable bathroom. Faced with its cramped and dirty quarters, she made a split-second decision that would lead to tragedy.
Olivia realized that all three of them could not fit inside the bathroom. Fearing that Nayeli would wander off if left alone, she decided to leave Jacqueline in her car seat on the ground next to the bathroom. After about a minute, she came back out of the bathroom, only to discover that Jacqueline and her car seat were gone.
Hoping that her mother had taken the child, Olivia rushed into the swap meet. As this was happening, she felt her heart beating very fast; she was very scared. When she finally made it to her mother’s booth, she learned that Jacqueline was not there. By that point she was very nervous and upset; she felt like she was going to die. She did not know what to do next.
Olivia and her mother went from booth to booth, asking if anybody had seen Jacqueline. After twenty horrifying minutes, the police were called. Avondale police officers immediately sealed off the swap meet and began an extensive search. An officer was stationed at each of the exits along the fence line. As cars left, officers would check inside to see if they had Jacqueline or her car seat.
Jacqueline was not found. One of the swap meet vendors, however, did notice a woman who she felt was acting suspiciously. According to the vendor, the woman came to her booth and began caressing the face of her infant daughter, who was in a car seat. The woman said to the vendor, "What a beautiful baby." This made the vendor feel uneasy and caused her to pay attention to this woman. But authorities were unable to find anyone who matched the woman's description.
Colleen Nick of the Morgan Nick Foundation was informed by a national missing children's agency about Jacqueline's abduction. The foundation was created after Colleen's six-year-old daughter, Morgan, disappeared in 1995. After they learned of Jacqueline's case, the foundation sprang into action. They created posters, sent out Jacqueline's information via email, and counseled her family.
On June 25, 2001, Colleen traveled to Avondale to meet Olivia for the first time and console her in person. Olivia blames herself for Jacqueline’s abduction. However, she was comforted to know that she is not alone in her suffering. She says that since Colleen also had her child taken from her, Colleen knows what she is feeling. She says that it is nice to talk to someone that knows what she is going through.
Colleen has found that that is the greatest need that a family has – just to be able to look someone in the eye and know that there are other people who have not given up hope, to know that they are going to survive and "come through" this, and that hopefully their child is going to come home. She says hope and reassurance is what she tries to bring to families the most.
Assisted by the foundation, police continue to search for Jacqueline. The FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have also become involved in the investigation.

Suspects: A suspicious woman was seen in the swap meet shortly before Jacqueline's abduction. A witness claimed that she was very interested in her child and was touching her. She was seen by several other witnesses asking about children and infants and giving them "undue" attention. A sketch of her was made, but she has never been identified.
Another witness told authorities that he saw a woman lingering around the portable toilets while Jacqueline and Olivia were nearby. A sketch of her was made, but she has also never been identified. No one matching her description was at the swap meet when police arrived. It is not known if the sightings (and sketches) were of the same individual.
Authorities thought they had gotten a break in this case when they found a woman matching the suspect's description on video, leaving the swap meet with an infant. The video was recorded by a TV cameraman who was filming the swap meet that day. Olivia believed that the infant was Jacqueline. The woman in the video was later located and questioned; however, police determined that she was not involved in the case and that the infant was not Jacqueline.
Authorities are also searching for an unidentified full-size red pickup truck that was seen near the swap meet around the time Jacqueline vanished. It is possibly a Ford. Authorities do not know if it is connected to the case.
Within days, authorities ruled out Jacqueline's parents as suspects in her disappearance.
Authorities believe that Jacqueline's abductor was a woman who wanted a child of her own to raise. They do not believe that she intended to harm Jacqueline. It is possible that the woman lost her own child shortly before the abduction or was unable to have one. Olivia believes that the abductor may have taken Jacqueline outside of Arizona.
Extra Notes:

  • This case first aired on the August 28, 2001 episode, along with Morgan Nick.
  • The show referred to Jacqueline as "Jacqueline Castaneda" but all other sources refer to her as "Jacqueline Vasquez".
  • It was also profiled on America’s Most Wanted and Missing.
  • Some sources state that Nayeli, not Olivia, was the one that had to go to the bathroom that morning.

Results: Unsolved - Olivia and Jorge have since separated. She later moved to California but remains in contact with Avondale police. If Jacqueline is still alive, she would now be in her early twenties.
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