Crime Junkie - MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Franchesca Alvarado
Episode Date: April 15, 2024When 22-year-old Franchesca Alvarado set out on a quick weekend trip to Atlantic City in March of 2012, it was meant to be a simple getaway… but it spiraled into a baffling tragedy. Her family is ho...ping that someone out there has the answers they’ve been searching for.If you have any information about Franchesca Alvarado, please contact the New Jersey Police tip line at 1-833-4NJ-COLD or COLDCASE@NJSP.GOVVisit the Find Franchesca Cheka Alvarado Facebook page for updates.If you or a loved one is experiencing domestic abuse of any kind, you are not alone. You can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233); for TTY: 1-800-787-3224; or text “START” to 88788.Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: crimejunkiepodcast.com/mysterious-death-franchesca-alvarado Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllc Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
Transcript
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Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
And I'm Britt.
And the story I have for you today is about a young mom who sets out on this quick weekend trip.
But what was meant to be a simple getaway spirals into a tragedy that baffles her family and investigators alike.
This is the story of Francesca Alvarado. Music It's Monday, March 19th, 2012, and a young woman named Mia is getting worried because
she's been trying to get in touch with her sister Francesca for the past day, and she
can't seem to get a hold of her.
Now, she knows her sister lost her phone earlier that month, but she also knows that she's kind of rigged up her laptop
for texting, so she's been using that to message people.
So there's no reason for her to be radio silent like this.
Now normally Mia would just head to Francesca's place
in the hunting park section of Philadelphia to look for her,
but she has school that day.
So she asks someone she knows
to just pop over and check on her.
And when that person calls Mia back, he says,
okay, I'm here at the house
and I'm gonna put her on the phone.
So Mia immediately starts to breathe easier
thinking that her means Francesca.
But that relief only lasts for like a second
because when she hears the voice come in
on the other end of the line, it is a her,
but not like her, her, you know what I mean?
Not her sister.
It's her sister's roommate,
a girl that we're gonna call Tara.
And Tara tells Mia something surprising.
She says that Francesca went to Atlantic City
with a friend of theirs,
this older guy named Tracy Williams two days before.
That would have been Saturday the 17th,
which was St. Patrick's Day.
And they were planning to stay out there
for a couple of weeks.
So she's like, it's gonna be a minute
before she's even back. And right away, couple of weeks. So she's like, it's going to be a minute before she's even back.
And right away, when Mia hears this, she's like, no.
Francesca doesn't do Atlantic City?
Well, she does.
I mean, it's only an hour away.
She's taken some quick trips there before, but she doesn't do Atlantic City for weeks.
And when she travels, she usually brings her three year old daughter with her,
which this time she didn't because Tara tells Mia that Francesca dropped the little girl off with a family friend before
leaving.
But there's even another reason that Mia is so concerned.
You see, Francesca is about eight weeks pregnant, and she has an important doctor's appointment
coming up on Tuesday, March 20th, one that Mia planned to go to with her.
She wouldn't just miss it.
Is Tracy the guy that's the dad?
No, they're not romantically involved.
Francesca's actually pregnant by her boyfriend,
who I'll talk more about in a minute.
This Tracy guy is more of, I guess, just like a friend.
I mean, Mia only met him a couple of times.
But she knows that he is significantly older than her sister.
Like, Francesca's only 22 and Tracy's like 50.
That reminds me of Jodie Hussentrude and John Van Sise.
Ominous comparison, but you're right, similar. Because again, as far as Mia knows, there's
like nothing going on between the two of them. He's just been like helping Francesca out,
brings her some groceries sometimes. He's apparently trying to get her a job in real
estate. And even though he lives in Philly, he actually does spend a lot
of time in Atlantic City. So Mia tries to stay calm. Maybe there's some great business opportunity
in Jersey that Francesca just couldn't turn down or away. I don't know. And Mia kind of fights with
herself internally, debating back and forth. Like, should I go to the police? Am I going to make my
sister mad for overreacting? It's gonna turn out to be nothing.
So she lets a couple of days pass and then a couple more.
But by that point, Mia's sufficiently freaked out.
And so is the rest of Francesca's family.
And I assume this whole time
she's still not answering any messages.
No, she's not.
And that's more concerning because Tara specifically says
that she definitely brought her laptop with her
to Atlantic City.
But she's not responding to these messages,
she's not posting on social media either.
And by Friday the 23rd, Francesca's daughter
is asking for her mom and Mia can't take it anymore.
So that's when she files a missing persons report
with the Philadelphia Police Department.
She told our reporter Nina that even in 2012, when this is happening, they have the same
dated response.
She's an adult, she's going to be back when she's ready.
And Mia tries to tell them that Francesca has no reason to take off.
I mean, she's due to start college in a few months where she plans to study criminal justice
with the hope of becoming a lawyer. She tells them about how she adores her daughter.
Plus, it's not like her to just do something like this,
especially without telling any one of her siblings.
Like, they are a super close group.
They've had to be, because they've been through
a lot together.
Francesca is the youngest of eight.
Her dad started serving life in prison
the year that she was born, and their mom died
when she was just nine.
So an older sister got custody of her and Mia
and had been raising them for more than a decade now.
Like, Francesca wouldn't want to worry any of her siblings.
But again, like, with this dynamic, it's like even different.
And by the way, even if she wanted to take off,
she has no resources with which to actually do that.
No car, no money, nothing.
Now, it doesn't seem like anyone from the family tried to or was able to make contact with Tracy up to this point,
but I do know that he shows up to the police station the very next day, which would have been Saturday, March 24th.
And the story he gives kind of bolsters investigators theory that Francesca just left.
Do we know if he came back just to talk to police
or has he been back for a while?
So here's what's so strange.
So according to Tara,
he should have still been in Atlantic City,
but he tells detectives that he's been home since the 18th.
The way he describes it,
it seems like their plan was to always just stay one night
and then come back on Sunday.
So I don't know if someone just got their wires crossed
or what.
But anyway, Tracy's account is that he took Francesca,
along with a couple of his kids,
to Atlantic City on Saturday the 17th.
They stayed at his usual spot, the Resorts Casino Hotel.
But around like 2 a.m. on Sunday, Francesca decided that
she wanted to take a walk, and she told him that she would find her own way back to Philadelphia.
And he says this is the last time he saw her. He didn't even know she was missing until
a relative of his saw a social media post from her family looking for information on
her whereabouts.
She just walked out at 2 a.m. and was gonna find her own way back.
That's what he says.
Yeah, no.
It's strange for sure.
And mind you, I'll set the scene a little bit more.
It's not like she's storming out.
It doesn't sound like they fought or anything, at least not the way he explains it.
I think he even implies that Francesca actually asked him to come along on the walk, but then
since he had his kids there, he couldn't go.
Okay, that doesn't really add up either.
And even the way he's phrasing it, like,
she's just going for a walk or she's walking to go home.
Like, is she leaving or is she just, like,
popping out for a bit?
I know, and when detectives relay this information to Mia,
I mean, she's floored.
She's like, why would Francesca just take off
in the middle of the night and where would she even go?
I mean, her connections to the city were minimal at best.
She wasn't embedded in the social scene or anything.
So for Tracy to leave her there
or let her leave without a word
and then not to tell anyone until police got involved,
like her family's just struggling
to piece all of this logic together.
Because in their minds, as far as they're concerned,
he brought her to Atlantic City, he should have made sure she returned safely.
And the police are just cool with his story?
They seem to be. At least at first. For one thing, his kids apparently tell investigators
that Francesca was in the hotel room when they went to sleep on Saturday, and that she and her
bag were just gone when they woke up on Sunday, which does align
with Tracy's narrative. And they seem to think that he's credible. They say he's respectful,
he's cooperative, or at least up unto a point. And that point is when police ask him to take a polygraph.
Tracy quickly hires a lawyer who presumably advises against him taking that polygraph.
And just like that, he clams up.
No more answers, no more help.
And while that may have made police side-eye him and his story a little, it doesn't seem
like it made them jump into action to find Francesca.
That was left up to her loved ones, who head to Atlantic City and hit the ground running.
On the boardwalk, they talk to every passerby they can, hoping for details that can help
them retrace Francesca's last steps.
Mia even stakes out the resort's hotel, fishing for information from employees who are out
just taking smoke breaks.
And she actually does get a couple of nibbles from a front desk clerk who remembers Tracy and Francesca.
The clerk says that Tracy switched hotel rooms during their trip.
Like, I guess he requested the change because his room was quote unquote messy.
And the clerk also recalls that Francesca came up and asked her for recommendations
of where to party without needing an ID. Why, isn't she like 22?
She is, but apparently when she went up and asked this,
she was with someone else, like another young woman.
Now the clerk didn't get this person's name
or know who they were, but know what's interesting?
So Tara, Francesca's roommate from back where she lives,
she's only 17.
Now all along, Tara has been maintaining that she was home in Philadelphia that whole weekend.
But Mia starts to wonder if that's actually true.
Because what other underage person
would Francesca have been with?
What are the chances it's one of Tracy's kids?
If he's in his 50s, they could be teenagers, right?
No, apparently, I mean, they could be,
but apparently his kids were younger, like around 10,
so it wouldn't have been them.
Mm.
Did Mia find out where the women went after the hotel?
Well, no, but that's because the clerk said
she didn't give them any suggestions.
Like, she's like, Atlantic City has a lot of nightlife,
but it's really made for people over 21.
So with no real direction to help guide
their physical searches, Mia and her siblings
start a Facebook page dedicated to finding their sister.
And pretty soon there's a whole community involved,
family, friends, even strangers
that are just touched by their story.
And they all call themselves Team Checa,
which is a nod to Francesca's nickname.
The outpouring of love that they're getting
is inspiring to Mia.
But the one thing that's interesting is she notices
there are three people Francesca spent a lot of time with
that are noticeably absent from all of this.
And not just the Facebook group,
but also from the rallies they hold
and the times that they go and pass out flyers.
And those three people are Tracy, Tara,
and remember how I said Francesca had a boyfriend
that I'd get to?
Mm-hmm.
Well, I'm getting to it.
His name is William Coit, and he's not helping out either.
Now, let me back up just a little bit
and fill you in on this whole dynamic a bit.
So Francesca hasn't known any of these people for very long.
She considers Tara her best friend,
but Mia says that they only met the year before,
which would have been 2011.
And it was Tara who introduced Francesca to Tracy and Will.
But Tracy and Will ran in different circles.
So it's not like this is one big friend group.
Now I don't know how Tara and Tracy met,
but Will was practically family because Tara was dating his brother. So the two guys
stayed over a lot and Will and Francesca hit it off after she moved in with Tara
in November of 2011. Now even the setup is kind of interesting. So Tara's family
owned the townhouse that the two women were staying in and renting.
But Tara was too young to pay the bills in her name, which is where Francesca came in.
Plus, like Francesca, Tara also had a young daughter, so at first, I mean, honestly, it
seemed like this ideal setup.
Best friends, they each have kids, they're dating brothers, all under one roof.
I mean, that's kind of the plot for a sitcom.
This wasn't a sitcom because Francesca and Will's
relationship quickly soured.
Mia had actually been encouraging
her sister to leave him.
I mean, their nickname for him was Mr. Wrong.
Will had a long criminal record and, on top of that,
a bad temper, a temper that had boiled over shortly before she went to Atlantic City.
You see, two days before she left,
Mia had seen her sister,
and there was a long scratch on her arm.
And Francesca told Mia that it was from Will
trying to throw her out of her bedroom window.
Oh my God.
Yeah, and there was some other shady boot stuff happening too.
So Francesca had more than $2,000 all from her income tax refund, but apparently that
money had mysteriously disappeared from her house recently.
Now if Atlantic City were taking bets on it, Mia would have put all her money on the odds
that Will stole it, but when she mentioned that theory to her sister, Francesca didn't
want to believe that.
But she was getting tired of Mr. Wrong.
Even though she cared about him and was pregnant by him, it seemed like she was about ready
to kick him to the curb.
She was even making plans to move in with Mia.
So what you're saying is she'd be leaving Tara's place and Will at the same time?
Right.
And did Tara and Will know that?
Tara did, but Mia doesn't think that Will was like in the know.
Okay, but it's not a stretch to think that Tara might have told him though.
Right, maybe.
And if she did, I mean, I think there's a world where she only knew about the move.
Maybe she just told him that, which doesn't necessarily mean that he knew she was going
to end things. So I't necessarily mean that he knew she was gonna end things.
So I don't know what he knew.
But all of that to say, whatever was going on, the fact that neither of them are showing
up for her now is infuriating to Mia.
Especially because Francesca is super loyal and Mia knows that she would be out there
pounding the pavement looking for any one of them if the situation was reversed.
And she just thinks of how hurt her sister is gonna be
when she learns about their absence.
And I say gonna be because that's the way
she's still thinking at this point.
Because as far as Mia is concerned,
Francesca is going to find out someday.
The idea that she's in danger, abducted,
maybe being held captive or trafficked,
I mean, that's always on Mia's mind.
Because she knows something is seriously wrong.
Otherwise they would have heard from her by now,
but she won't even let herself believe
that Francesca is dead.
She can't stay on that thought.
So she and Team Checa keep searching day after day
as they go up and down the boardwalk
with the city on one side, the ocean on the other.
Mia focuses on the buildings and the alleyways,
not that vast expanse of water that fills her with dread.
They paper the boardwalk with flyers,
hoping someone's gonna recognize
the pretty dark-haired young woman in the photo.
But officers remove the flyers as fast as they put them up.
What?
They tell Mia that there's actually rules
against posting flyers.
And there might be, but she thinks that they're more
trying to protect an image of Atlantic City
that is this, like, family-friendly, safe place, and...
And a woman going missing ruins all of that.
Yeah, like, doesn't fit into that. Mm-hmm.
And she might be onto something,
because in 2012, Atlantic City's violent crime rate
was the second highest in all of New Jersey.
Tourism was suffering, and casino revenue had been, like, plummeting for years. Well, the Atlantic City's violent crime rate was the second highest in all of New Jersey.
Tourism was suffering and casino revenue had been plummeting for years.
So at the time, the city was essentially trying to rebrand itself.
And actually, coincidentally, just a couple of days after Francesca disappeared, the state attorney general held a press conference to detail efforts Atlantic City had been taking to tackle crime and shake off its unsafe reputation. And actually those measures included boosting the number of security cameras and compiling
a network of hundreds of privately owned surveillance systems throughout the city that police could
access quickly if need be.
Which now need be.
So officials had been working with the casinos to audit a bunch of their cameras.
Well, I mean, that's the least that they can do if they're going to take down all of the
posters. I mean, yeah, go through the cameras.
Yes, but the footage is only helpful if police get to it in time. Mia says that investigators
told her that the resort's cameras are overwritten every seven days. So by the time they went
and tried to pull the footage,
it must have been too late.
And Mia doesn't even think that they tried expanding their search
to the surrounding casinos and neighborhoods.
So they're still not, like, leading the charge
in an investigation right now?
No, not that the family can tell.
And they're facing another battle, too,
and that's against misconceptions.
According to a Metro article by Alexandra Wigglesworth,
some early media reports identified Francesca
as a sex worker, which her loved ones say isn't true.
And police apparently distributed flyers indicating
that she was depressed, so her family worries
that the false narratives could hurt
their chances of finding her.
They also feel like cops in Atlantic City
are dragging their heels since Francesca's not a local. But there's nothing they can
really do because the Philadelphia police are like, like, well she didn't go
missing here, like what are we supposed to do?
Well and it's a completely different state too, like it's not just like a
county over or town over. It's a completely different agency at the core of it.
And this is like what gets so hard because they are involved. So Philadelphia is
involved because she lived there,
but then you've got the local like Atlantic City involved
because she potentially went missing from there.
Actually, at some point, the FBI comes in too.
So they've got like all these jurisdictions,
which are great.
It's great to have help, but like,
then you have to wonder how well is everyone communicating.
Now I know one thing that the FBI,
or at least someone was doing,
is they were monitoring Francesca's social media and her access debit card, which is used for state benefits like
Medicaid or SNAP.
But in monitoring that, I mean, they're seeing no activity.
So it's not like that's showing them that she's out there just living her life.
Now, I know one of the steps that the Philadelphia Police Department take is they actually bring
Tara in for questioning at some point, although it's not super clear
what they learn when they do.
And the other thing that they do
is they search Francesca's room in her and Tara's place,
but nothing's been reported
if they ever found anything significant.
Although, apparently something relevant was missed
when they searched it.
Because a couple of days after their search,
when Mia heads over to pick up some of her sister's belongings,
she finds something alarming.
In Francesca's room, there on the floor by her bed,
Mia sees a pair of pants.
And when she picks them up and starts going through the pockets,
she finds her sister's ID and that access card that police had been tracking.
I mean, this whole time, police have been waiting for her to use it, and it turns out
she didn't even have it.
Well, and if her ID is there, that could explain why she and that other woman were asking the
front desk clerk about places they could party without an ID.
Like maybe she knew she'd forgotten her home and couldn't get in anywhere without it.
That's one possibility.
Um, I don't know if it's the most likely one,
because, I mean, at some point,
detectives speak with that hotel clerk,
and after that, they tell Mia that the woman
may have just had her timing mixed up.
Like, they think maybe that whole encounter
happened on a different weekend
before Francesca went missing.
Because I guess when they drilled down,
the clerk wasn't super sure about when it occurred.
I don't know, again, it's still possible
that she didn't have her ID that weekend.
But another possibility is that maybe Francesca
did make it back to her home sometime after the 17th.
To figure out which possibility is true,
Team Cheka's focus is really on Tracy.
He was the last one to see her and his story just doesn't add up.
Mia can't help but think that he must have done
something to her sister.
Now, he's obviously not cooperating with police.
He sure as shit not cooperating with the family.
So in order to try and put the pressure on,
they flood his neighborhood with posters of Francesca.
In May, a lieutenant tells the Philadelphia Inquirer
reporter Ronnie Polineski that he can't say
if Tracy is a person of interest or not
since the investigation's ongoing.
But they certainly seem to be interested in him.
And is Tracy the only one they're looking at?
Like, what about, I don't know,
some random person in Atlantic City or even Will?
I mean, every scenario is on the table at this point.
They don't even know where she is.
And I know investigators do question Will while he's locked up on unrelated charges.
He tells them, like, you know, of course he says that he didn't do anything to Francesca.
He even takes a polygraph.
And detectives tell the family that he passed it.
But he was also apparently acting so irrationally after taking it that I don't know that they put much stock into the results.
But all that to say, polygraph, no polygraph, Mia is definitely suspicious of Will.
But Tara tells her that Will wasn't even aware that Francesca was in Atlantic City that day, so she's like he couldn't have done anything to her.
Okay, honestly, I'm not sure how much stock I want to put in Tara though.
I don't know why anyone's not looking at her.
I can't help but notice that she's the only person in the story whose name you've changed.
Which makes me feel I've been doing this for a while.
You still have something up your sleeve.
Yeah, well, but without telling you what's up my sleeve, just knowing what they know
now, at this point in the story, I do think they should have been looking at Will
and Tara closer as well.
So does finding the ID and the card change me as focus
or does she still think that Francesca went missing
from Atlantic City?
I don't know if she knows,
but I think that's still the going theory at the time.
I mean, it seems to be like the same,
that she disappeared from Atlantic City.
Although if that's true,
then that's actually a bigger problem
for Francesca's supporters,
because despite some news coverage
that she's getting in Philadelphia,
there's like virtually nothing about her disappearance
in the Atlantic City or national media.
So the people that they really need to reach
probably don't even know that Francesca exists,
much less that she's missing
or the circumstances around it.
But in Philly, at least, the word is out.
The family's Facebook page quickly amasses
thousands of followers,
and it kind of becomes the heart of their operation.
A community hub where information is shared,
where plans are made.
Mia actually starts a petition trying to put public pressure
on Tracy to talk.
She queries supporters for intel about Will and Tara, who she refers to as some of the
last people to see her sister and some of the first to give up on her.
The family also works with the Philadelphia police to offer a reward, hoping maybe $25,000
will incentivize people to start talking.
And by Thanksgiving, they're back on the Atlantic City boardwalk,
handing out hot meals and clothes,
along with flyers to those in need.
Anything to get the word out.
But for all of their efforts, nothing changes.
By July of 2013, the family's theory
that Francesca has been abducted
and might be the victim of trafficking
is stronger than ever.
And according to one of their Facebook posts, law enforcement feels the same way.
Now, I'm not sure why this is the predominant theory beyond the fact that since her family
thinks Francesca is alive or hoping she's alive, like trafficking is really the only explanation
they can wrap their heads around. But like, I just keep, I see that a lot.
Like that's kind of like what they had attached to in those early days. And I mean when you think
about it, New Jersey is considered a hotbed of human trafficking thanks to
its geographic location and its massive hospitality industry. And when it comes
to Atlantic City itself, I mean the only other place in the US with a larger
gaming market and a worse reputation for sex work and other illegal activity is
Las Vegas. So are they thinking that Tracy is trafficking her or someone else?
Again, like the possibilities are endless when they know nothing.
And to be very clear, I mean, as far as we can tell,
Tracy has never been charged with anything related to trafficking,
nothing even related to domestic violence or anything like that in his history.
But to her family, Tracy makes the most sense as a culprit, just based on him being the
last person to see her and his actions surrounding the whole situation.
However, police aren't like getting blinders on, they're expanding their focus.
They start leaning on suspected traffickers in Atlantic City trying to find out if any
of them could have been involved or if they know anything.
But every time they talk or get information,
it's kind of always the same.
Like, no one's seen her, they don't know where she is.
But later that summer, it actually happens
on Wednesday, August 7th, which is nearly a year and a half
since Francesca went missing.
Mia is in Atlantic City.
She's conducting one of her countless searches.
And that's when she sees this article about a startling discovery that throws everything they thought
they knew into question.
Because what she reads, what's in front of her, is that just a day earlier, which would
have been August 6th, a man was fishing on the beach in Corson's Inlet State Park, which
is like 15 miles from Atlantic City.
And apparently he catches something
that he was not expecting.
The skeletal remains of a foot inside a sneaker.
I mean, and some of the toenails still had remnants
of colored polish on them.
Now initially, there's like no information.
Investigators couldn't tell the gender
or the age of the person,
so they have no idea who it belongs to.
All they did was put out this press release,
including a photo of the shoe.
But the moment that Mia sees this shoe,
this news, like her stomach drops,
because she would recognize that size,
five and a half black Adidas high top anywhere.
She'd been teasing her sister about those sneakers
ever since she first bought them.
She thought they were hideous,
but Francesca loved those sneakers.
Those are her sister's sneakers.
So Mia immediately calls the medical examiner's office
and fills them in, and they get the ball rolling
on DNA testing to confirm what the family
already knows in their hearts.
And they're right.
In September, the lab verifies that that foot is Francesca's.
And did they find the rest of her?
No, all they have is her foot.
And they are able to determine, though,
that the foot detached from her ankle,
naturally, for a lack of a better term,
like it hadn't been cut.
So she'd likely been in the water for some time,
and the rest of her probably still is,
but they don't know what happened before she ended up in the ocean
or how she got there or how she might have died.
Now, this is where we get another agency,
because New Jersey State Police takes over the case
since that's where her foot was found.
And even though a sergeant there tells Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Barbara Boyer that it's
an active death investigation, it doesn't appear that Francesca is actually declared
dead yet.
According to MIA, authorities tell the family that since a person can live without a foot,
they're holding off on making any official declaration.
Which is fine with Mia.
Because even as they plan Francesca's celebration of life, even as they watch more than a thousand
people cram into a Northeast Philadelphia church, everyone wearing her favorite color
purple, her family does not want to believe that she's actually gone.
The only saving grace in that moment is that they're surrounded by so much love and support.
Even the man who found Francesca's foot is there.
He and his wife make the hour and a half long trip from their home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
bearing thoughtful mementos like the shells that were found near her remains.
And I gotta ask, what about our trio?
Do they show up to this? Not Will. As far as I can tell, he's locked up. He seems to be in and out of jail a lot.
But also, Tara is a no-show.
She's not in jail. And this really upsets Mia because even though there has been some bad blood since Francesca
disappeared, and I know she hasn't like been a part of other things, like Mia expected her to come to this.
She actually ends up reaching out to her on Facebook and sending her this pretty angry message and Tara
Apologizes for not going she says you know I have supported efforts to find Francesca in my own quiet ways
I still love her and she points out
She's like I think Francesca would be really disappointed about the division that's grown among the people that she cared about most
be really disappointed about the division that's grown among the people that she cared about most.
So no terror, no will, and as far as Tracy, it doesn't look like he was there either because police in Philadelphia tell a journalist that they have information that he has quote-unquote
left the area, but they don't seem to know where he is. It's yet another mystery. And Mia has had enough of those to last a lifetime at this point.
Like she just wants answers now.
So day after day, she Googles phrases like body found
and Jane Doe and washed ashore.
Any combo that she can think of that might pull up results.
Her family worries that this endless quest
is bad for her mental health.
And it might've been, but it does pay off.
On January 24th of 2014, a femur is found
along the same stretch of New Jersey coast
where Francesca's foot washed up.
And then a few days later,
a tibia turns up on a beach in the same area.
Mia reaches out to authorities
and DNA testing links both bones to Francesca.
They're from different legs.
And it's at this point that Mia can't hold on to her denial any longer.
She knows that her sister is dead.
But even those additional remains don't bring more answers because when a death
certificate is finally issued in January of 2016, the cause of death is listed as undetermined.
A few months after that, in April, Francesca's family wraps the few bones
that they have in purple silk and lays her to rest with their mother. It feels
like an end to one chapter, but it's not the end of the story. Because in the
spring of 2018, new detectives are assigned to Francesca's
case and these new investigators bring up a whole new suspect name, at least a
name that's new to Mia, and that's Jarell Jackson, better known as Jinx.
Is he connected to any of the people we know about?
Oh, he's connected, all right. And to explain this,
I have to tell you a completely different story,
one with a lot of familiar characters.
Back in 2012, around the time that Francesca went missing,
a teenage girl who we're gonna call Chloe
moved to Philadelphia after her father
was awarded custody of her.
Her stepmom was abusive and made her get a job at a bar
so she could help pay rent and bills.
Chloe was totally exhausted from working late night shifts
and she vented about the situation to a coworker.
Well, that coworker was Tara.
And Tara seemed to be very sympathetic.
She told Chloe that what her family was doing to her was a sin.
In fact, she felt so bad that she asked Chloe
to come live with her.
After all, she had the space
because her old roommate, Francesca,
that room was empty now.
So Chloe moved in.
As far as I can tell, once she moved in,
she didn't have to work at the bar anymore,
but this was far from a free ride.
She kind of ended up being a live-in nanny
because Tara would often leave her young daughter
in her care.
And then at some point,
this would have been around late summer, early fall of 2012,
Tara asked Chloe to run an errand with her.
According to Chloe, a guy picked them up
and drove them to a nearby hotel, And Tara told Chloe to run inside with her
and they go into this room and there's already people there.
And it turns out the people are Francesca's old boyfriend,
Will, and this other woman.
Now the next thing Chloe knows,
this Jarrell guy came into the room,
locked the door and took Chloe's cell phone.
And then he and Will pulled out guns
and told her she now had to work for them.
And the other woman warned Chloe
that they knew where her family lived.
If she didn't do what they said,
they were gonna kill them and her.
So Tara set her up.
Well, Chloe doesn't know any of these people.
And at first she thought that, like, she and
Tara were both victims because Tara was, like, crying, she's apologizing, saying she had no idea
what was, like, going on, if this was gonna happen. But for the next year, as Chloe was essentially
held captive in various hotels, I mean, and it was bad, she was drugged, she was beaten,
burned with cigarettes, she was trafficked by Jarell and Will. Over this year, she noticed that Tara was just kind of free to come and go as she pleased.
And she made note that one time when she had confided in Tara about hiding money,
Tara quickly ratted her out to Will.
And she thinks Tara is the one who told her captors where her family lived,
and who helped them expand their operation to the Backpage website.
and who helped them expand their operation to the Backpage website.
Now, while all of this was happening,
Tara was also performing sex work.
And so I have to point out that for at least some
of that time, she was underage,
which means that she was also a victim of trafficking herself.
But based on Chloe's account,
Tara was a perpetrator as well.
It's not clear if she was working for Will and
Jarell or with them or what the setup was.
But it doesn't appear that she was subjected to the same treatment as Chloe or
the roster of other girls and young women that they were accused of trafficking,
at least not in the time that Chloe saw.
So what I know is that the FBI started investigating Jarrell in the summer of 2013 after Chloe
got into a dispute with someone at another hotel and police realized that she was underage.
So Jarrell was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges a few months later, and in 2015 he
pled guilty to trafficking five victims, two of whom were minors and one of them was Chloe.
Now he later tried to walk back that plea but it didn't work
and due to the severity of his crimes along with past convictions for things like theft, drug,
and gun possessions he was ultimately sentenced to 25 years in prison. Now other traffickers were
also convicted and a bunch of victims filed civil lawsuits against the hotel franchises where it all
went down. And it was actually court records from the various cases
that help peel back the curtain on Francesca's story.
Because it turns out she comes up multiple times,
sometimes by name, but also other times
where the descriptions of circumstances
are just so specific,
they're almost certainly talking about her.
And, Britt, I've actually sent you a bunch of stuff that Nina found and I highlighted certain pieces that I'm talking about. Can you just take
a peek and summarize? I mean, you can take a minute. This is the beauty of podcasting. Like,
you can just pause and then, like, take it out and post. Or I can just, like, add some Jeopardy-esque
music right here. No, no, that's unnecessary. Give me a sec. Okay, so this one looks like it's from
when the FBI questioned Jarrell about Francesca
back when he was arrested.
That was in October of 2013.
The questioning makes it seem like they think she was involved in sex work, but it's not
really clear if they believe she was doing it voluntarily or if she was a victim of trafficking.
They're asking Jarrell for information on the quote, unsolved murder of a prostitute
in Atlantic City.
Yeah.
And I'm not going to make you read the whole thing.
Like, there's nothing specifying what, if anything, they learned from him.
But we know that there must have been something because during a deposition Chloe gave for
the civil lawsuit later that we got records from, an attorney implied that Jarrell actually did offer evidence to the FBI specifically about Will's involvement in Francesca's death.
Now Chloe says she never met Francesca, but she did recall hearing that Francesca was involved in sex work and claimed that Will was her pimp.
And she knew that Will and Tara were the quote-unquote main two suspects in her disappearance.
Beyond that though, Chloe did not want
to discuss the situation.
She seemed really freaked out.
She kind of flipped back and forth
between outright refusing to talk about it
to asking if she had to tell them what she knew
to like saying she didn't know anything about it
except for what she had heard on the news.
Oh, and something else that also came up
during another deposition that might be related
to Francesca?
There was this guy named Adrian, this hotel security guard, who was convicted of conspiring with another sex trafficker.
And apparently Adrian mentioned a rumor that Jerelle had a girl who didn't want to be part of their operation anymore.
Apparently this girl was planning to leave, even threatened to go to the police,
and word on the street is that Jerelle killed her and buried her body on a beach in New
Jersey. And the reason I say that that might be about Francesca rather than
definitely is about her is that Adrian described the girl as white and we know
that Francesca is Hispanic. But given everything else we know about this case,
I mean there is a good chance he is talking about her.
Now, those civil lawsuits were initially just aimed at the various hotel franchises.
The plaintiffs, the victims, argued that they turned a blind eye to the atrocities that were happening right under their roofs.
But the hotels dragged Jarrell, Will, and other traffickers into the fray as third-party defendants.
They were basically saying like, hey, it's not on us.
Like these guys are the ones responsible.
They plan to depose Jarell and Will,
but it looks like it never came to that
because the cases were settled.
And at the time of this recording,
13 victims have been awarded a total of $86 million.
That's a huge victory.
Totally.
Now the plaintiff's attorneys said that the criminal process had already punished
the traffickers.
The civil lawsuits were to hold the hotel owners accountable.
But that's only partially true because for some reason, Will was never charged with anything
related to trafficking and neither was Tara, though again acknowledging
the complexity of her situation.
I just want to be clear about what's happening legally.
Now all that to say, I mean, Will's not a free man.
In 2022, he pled guilty to federal charges including dealing firearms without a license
and distributing fentanyl.
And that same year, he was convicted in state court for various gun charges, terroristic
threats, assault,
and reckless endangerment.
And that was related to an incident during which
he got into an argument with a man,
threatened to fire bomb his house,
and fired his gun.
Yeah, so dude set to be in state prison until 2028.
Okay, there's one thing that I just can't let go of
with Will.
You said earlier that he didn't even know
that Francesco was in Atlantic City that weekend. I guess I can't figure out how he could
then be involved in her death in Atlantic City.
I think it goes back to like what you pointed out at that time too, right? Where
it's like we got that from Tara.
That's true.
But I know that at some point over the years Mia confronted Tara and asked her
about that again and Tara changed her story and said,
actually, he did know she was there.
Plus, Mia said Will had a car,
and he and Francesca had gone to Atlantic City
for her 22nd birthday just the month before she disappeared.
So, I mean, he would have been at least
somewhat familiar with the area.
But that doesn't mean that Will
is the only potential culprit.
As far as I'm concerned,
Tracy's story still doesn't add up.
But police actually brought up an interesting theory
to Francesca's family, which for the record,
Mia's not really buying the story,
but I think it's worth mentioning,
even though the details of it are super hazy.
Basically, the theory is that Will and Francesca
were planning to rob Tracy outside of the hotel that night,
but Tracy couldn't leave the room because his kids were there, so like the robbery didn't happen.
Okay, how does that explain Francesca's death?
I think all it does is put Will there with her, like at the time she was there.
So if this theory is right and Tracy's story is true, like two big ifs, then she would
have like left at two o'clock in the morning, presumably to meet up with Will, not just to take a walk. But then in my mind, I'm like, why would she
invite Tracy if she's gonna, like, again, there's things that don't make sense to me,
but this isn't coming for me.
There's, like, too many holes in that plot. Yeah.
Yeah. Mia says that detectives imply that there were a couple of messages between Francesca
and Will that may have led them in this direction, but Mia hasn't seen the messages
so it's really hard to say if there's anything solid backing this up.
And I don't have any idea if they have proof that Will was in the area that weekend.
Now New Jersey State Police denied our request for an interview.
They only answered a few questions in writing and they wouldn't tell us much about the current
state of the investigation, just that it's ongoing and active. Our state police records request has been pending for
months. Meanwhile, Philadelphia police claim they have no records at all, because I guess
once they turned the case over to New Jersey, all their files went with it. So I can't like,
you know, give you more information on like where theories are coming from or even what
they're thinking now. But I know what Francesca's family is thinking and to them, Will is now the most
likely suspect in their minds. They believe that he got angry when he found out about
her trip, that maybe he went to Atlantic City, possibly with Tara to confront Francesca,
contacted her somehow, asked her to come out and meet him, and then they got into a fight,
maybe something happened, they panicked, and dumped her body in the ocean. Now keep in mind,
Francesca was pregnant at the time that she went missing, which is a very dangerous time for women
in abusive relationships. I know we brought this up on the show before, but it's worth repeating,
studies have found that women who are pregnant or who were recently pregnant are more likely
to die by homicide than pregnancy-related causes, and they're frequently killed by a
partner.
Did Will know she was pregnant?
Well, apparently, yes, because he mentioned it to Francesca's father when the two men
ran into each other in prison.
But the weird thing is, is Mia says he told their father that she was six months pregnant,
which is definitely not the case.
So I don't know, you know, where the miscommunication was there,
but either way, it seems like he was aware.
So if all of this hasn't been enough of a roller coaster for Francesca's family,
in January of 2023, something else happens.
Mia is scrolling through social media when suddenly she sees a post that stops her cold.
It is a missing persons flyer for Tara.
What?
Yeah, according to Tara's family,
she left on the night of January 17th
to go get groceries for dinner and then just never returned.
So they reported her missing a couple of days later.
Now Tara's disappearance didn't spark
the long drawn out search that we saw with Francesca's, never returned, so they reported her missing a couple of days later. Now, Tara's disappearance didn't spark
the long drawn out search that we saw with Francesca's,
but like Francesca's story,
this one didn't have a happy ending.
Tara was located on January 21st,
but she had died of what Mia says was an overdose.
So her death is more than just a tragedy
in this tangled web.
Mia had to face the reality that any pathway to answers
that they hoped to find through her is now gone. Sometimes Mia feels like all she does is investigate,
but she doesn't want the trauma to overshadow the good memories that she shared with her sister.
So their family does what they can to keep her spirit alive, especially for Francesca's daughter.
She was only a toddler when her mom disappeared.
Now she's navigating the hallways of the same high school Francesca once attended,
even sharing the same writing teacher.
And actually through that connection,
the universe recently dropped a bit of magic into their lives.
That teacher does this thing where she has her students write a journal entry
every single day.
And by some miracle, she still had Francesca's journal.
No way.
From more than 15 years ago.
Oh my God.
So she gave it to Francesca's daughter.
180 days worth of Francesca's thoughts
and feelings and teenage musings.
That is incredible. It's like she's getting a chance to meet her mom
at the same age that she is now.
Yeah, the whole family was just blown away
by this unexpected treasure trove of memories.
But even though they got this,
Mia says she never could have imagined
back when this all began
that they would still be waiting for answers
and for someone to be held accountable
more than a dozen years later.
And she's hoping that maybe our crime junkies can help,
that this episode reaches the very people
who might know more.
So maybe you were in Atlantic City
for St. Patrick's Day weekend in 2012 and saw something.
A couple arguing on a boardwalk
or a young woman with long dark curly hair walking around in the early morning hours, maybe you never realized that
you had a piece of the puzzle this whole time. If you have any information about Francesca
Alvarado or any of the people in her orbit, please contact the New Jersey Police tip line at 833-4-NJ-COLD or you can contact them by email at coldcase at njsp.gov.
You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com.
And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast.
We'll be back. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production.
So what do you think Chuck?
Do you approve?