Two months of struggle and a family’s search
It was around 1 PM when Mari left the house, a quiet moment that followed a period of marked unease. Weeks earlier she had been discharged after a severe depressive episode, and though there was a slight improvement, the sense of worry lingered. She asked for cigarettes and ice cream, and then stepped out again to collect her thoughts. She returned only to walk away once more, saying she had left the items behind. She did not come back, and the family never saw her again.
María Josefa Carnerero disappeared in broad daylight from the Contrueces neighborhood of Gijón on July 7, 2018. Her family, alerted to the possibility of self-harm, launched into a rapid search that day. No clue emerged, and four years later she remains missing.
In a family photo from the Mari album, there is a moment of ordinary life abruptly bound to a secret, an open status that hints at both memory and loss.
Jennifer, her daughter, recalls the moment the alarm sounded and how she returned home from shopping to find her father increasingly nervous. Her mother hadn’t come back yet, and it felt like another long day at the mansion had ended without light. The family moved quickly to react and began the search within hours, sweeping the neighborhood and then turning to the National Police. The level of concern was palpable. There had been a previous history of self-harm, and the family feared a relapse of danger. Everything looked bleak.
“The alarm went off right away,” the daughter says today. “I remember coming home because I had been out shopping and finding my father nervous. My mother wasn’t there, she hadn’t returned. It had been a long time since I had stepped into the mansion.”
The search began immediately, with a close family watch and a broader community response. “In half an hour” he can reconstruct for himself where they started looking. They completed a quick tour of the neighborhood, then went to the National Police in swift succession. The authorities registered a high level of concern; the family faced a daunting reality. The doctor’s notes of past suicide attempts and a clinical history of depression colored the urgency, and the family worried about the possibility that her mother might have harmed herself previously. The sense of urgency was reinforced by the need to act, with every minute feeling critical.
“Sewers, containers, rivers, bushes… I looked in every corner”
María Josefa Carnerero was 45, with brunette hair, wearing black skinny tights, a striped shirt, and leopard-pattern sandals. Her medical history included depression, and she had not been on prescribed medication recently. The first posters went up quickly, and media attention followed. The family remembers the scramble to mobilize neighbors and volunteers, plastering the city with her face so that no place would go unsearched.
The initial search covered Contrueces, Montevil, and Los Pericones Park in Gijón. Some witnesses reported seeing her walking alone around four in the afternoon, looking unsettled. The search extended to all imaginable places including sewers, rivers, valleys, containers, bushes, and private farms. There was no stopping point, no limit to where she might be, and no hint as to her whereabouts. The family even recalls the discomfort of a skin issue from the arduous searching they endured, a reminder of how physical exertion can accompany emotional strain. They were determined to keep looking, to reconstruct each step, even as uncertainty grew.
The days leading to disappearance: a relapse
The days just before the event showed signs of strain. The mother had appeared a bit steadier two days prior, but the underlying illness remained. A recent hospital stay followed a suicide attempt involving pills and alcohol, a crisis that left the family shaken. One night she had fallen into a profound sadness, her daughter Jennifer remembers, and her father found her near collapse when he returned home. She spent a week in intensive care at the Hospital de Jove in Gijón as doctors worked to stabilize her condition.
After some improvement she returned home, but the family recalls that the medical team did not treat the possibility of recurring risk as seriously as they hoped. Jennifer recalls that the professionals suggested a normal life after the hospitalization, a message that did not fully align with the lived reality of the family. A perception lingered that depression could be underestimated and treated as a brief episode rather than a chronic condition needing ongoing attention.
On the day Mari disappeared, recollections of the medical report haunted the family. The language of the diagnosis seemed to clash with the fear they carried: a person in their prime, fighting a long war against mental illness, could slip away even when surrounded by daylight and routine. The family wondered whether medication or medical oversight had truly addressed the risk; they felt a residual fear that she might have acted during a moment of vulnerability, a concern that would echo through the months that followed.
Another clue appeared when a bottle of J B appeared in the records. Hours turned into days with no solid trace. Surveillance footage showed her purchasing tobacco at a tobacconist, and it was noted she did not buy ice cream or other items that day. The pattern of prior suicide attempts, with alcohol and drugs involved, was cited as a potential parallel. Yet the family notes that the specific drug from the previous crisis did not appear in the current household, complicating the timeline and the interpretation of events. The investigation continued with a search for evidence, but nothing definitive emerged, not even a single bottle of the same brand.
The family eventually accepted the stark reality of an absence that could not be explained. The National Police UDEV unit led the inquiry, focusing on the possibility that Mari might still be alive, a stance that surprised the daughter who expected a different outcome. It was a difficult balance between hope and fear, between the possibility of foul play and a voluntary disappearance. The question that haunted everyone remained the same, a refrain that echoed in the home: where was Mari?
The canine unit of the National Police followed the terrain near Mari’s home, their noses tracing the farms and fields that bordered the neighborhood. Volunteers and officers walked miles together, hoping for a sign. No meaningful lead appeared. Her cell phone was checked meticulously, and the absence of unexpected messages or calls added to the mystery. The summer daylight did not reveal the truth, and the search stretched on with no resolution. The family faced the ache of waiting and the fear that suddenly there would be no answers at all.
“She did not eat, trembled, cried, did not look at me, did not kiss, did not hug… She had the urge to disappear”
Jennifer repeatedly revisits that July 2018 moment. The family wondered whether the illness, the stress, or something more ominous had driven her away. Was it irrational fear, a paranoia, or a crisis the public could never fully understand? They question whether someone threatened Mari or if she acted alone in a moment of desperation. The memory of her absence has never faded, and the sense that something important slipped away remains a weight they carry every day.
As the search continued, Mari’s daughter spoke softly into the silence, hoping for a sign from her mother. The plea was simple and human: if anyone knows something, please share it. If there is any message from Mari, a whisper to tell her family she is okay would be enough to bring a sense of closure. The wound remains fresh, but the hope persists in quiet moments when the family gathers and remembers the life of a mother, a friend, and a constant presence who is still missed.
Other photos from the family album show Mari smiling beside her daughter, snapshots that now feel like fragile windows into a life paused. The absence has reshaped their days, turning ordinary tasks into reminders of what was lost. Her daughter continues to move forward, balancing work and the perpetual drive to keep her mother in sight through memory and hope. The unanswered questions endure, but so does a stubborn resolve to carry on and to honor Mari by living with the truth of what happened, however difficult that truth may be.
In the end, the family’s voice remains a plea to the world. A call to find answers, to hold those responsible for truth, and to protect others from a similar fate. The memory of Mari lives in the stories told by those who loved her most, in the quiet courage of a daughter who seeks closure, and in the enduring belief that every life deserves to be found and understood.