Friends, family gather at Dallas Police Headquarters seeking help to find missing Jennifer Mendez Olascoaga
DALLAS (CBSNewsTexas.com) — The search for a missing Dallas ISD teacher's assistant is expanding and police are now involved.
It has been two weeks since Jennifer Mendez Olascoaga vanished after dropping a friend off at home in Seagoville on Sept. 27. But new information suggests that she made a later stop in Dallas.
On Wednesday, family members gathered outside Dallas Police Headquarters, urging investigators to do everything they can to bring Olascoaga home.
They also had a message for the community: stop, take a look at her picture, and take a minute to feel what it would be like to have someone you love vanish.
"Jennifer was always a outgoing person," her brother-in-law, who wanted to be identified only as "Marco," said. "She loved being around others. I would always catch her, you know, just singing randomly, singing a song that she likes."
For him and others who knew her, time has become torturous.
"Right now...They're struggling...They're stuck," Marco said. "They don't know what to do, where to go."
As the days and weeks continue to pass, Olascoaga's loved ones—as well as complete strangers—have continued to search for her, becoming amateur investigators.
"Well, we were just going everywhere...knocking on doors or on restaurants or anything that we could find that has cameras and just ask them to look at a certain time, see if they saw [anything]," Marco said.
He shared that a manager of one of those businesses found footage of her going into a QuikTrip, where she was seen buying something inside before coming out, pumping gas and leaving alone.
It was earlier that evening that the teacher's assistant was seen on video dropping off her friend at the Creekside mobile home park. The family says that friend received some disturbing text messages afterward, asking if they were missing someone and warning she would never be found.
And the text messages have continued.
"There has been recent messages," Marco said. "Basically telling the friend that she's next."
