Murder Charges Filed in Case of Lubbock Teen Missing Three Years

Updated 6:23 p.m.

Mark ‘Anthony’ Ysasaga would be 18 years old.

Anna Maria Ysasaga-Cuevas woke up the morning of June 14, 2012, with a sick feeling in her stomach that one of her three children was in danger.

“I told myself something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what child it was,” Ysasaga-Cuevas said.

She continued to go about her normal routine, getting ready for work. The sick feeling continued to bug her, so she said she checked on her kids through a family locator she had installed on each of their phones.

Her middle son Mark had just called her early in the morning to ask about a cell phone he wanted to sell to a friend and for them to meet up for lunch.

Mark’s phone was the only phone she could not locate on the family locator app.

“I thought to myself, okay, something’s wrong,” Ysasaga-Cuevas said. “I just got off the phone with him like 30 minutes ago.”

What Mark’s mother didn’t know was that it would be the last time she spoke to her son.

The Lubbock Police Department announced Thursday it had collected enough evidence to obtain an arrest warrant and charge Jose Angel Simental with the murder of Mark ‘Anthony’ Ysasaga. Simental is currently serving a 7-year sentence for an unrelated crime. Ysasaga’s body has not been found.

Image of Jose Angel Simental from Lubbock County Detention Center

Image of Jose Angel Simental from Lubbock County Detention Center

Three weeks before Mark’s disappearance, his dad’s house had been burglarized, Ysasaga-Cuevas said. She remembered she had the name and number of the detective who worked the case, Jon House. So she called House, who told her not to worry because it was summer, a weekend, and Mark was a 15-year-old boy. She said he told her to wait and call back Monday.

Her son had never been in any trouble before and always called, so the disappearance was unlike him. She said she told the detective she had spoken to her son earlier and that it was out of character for him to let his phone go straight to voicemail. Still, trying to stay positive, she hung up and tried to continue with her work.

“I was thinking, maybe his phone did die,” Ysasaga-Cuevas said. “I’ll give him a little bit then he will realize his phone is dead.”

After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, she said she started calling everyone in the family to ask if anyone had heard from him.

Still there was no sign of Mark.

His mother started to retrace his steps, downloading all the activity from his phone over the last 48 hours. She tried calling everyone he had been in contact with before his disappearance.

She said the last person he had supposedly been seen with was a boy and his girlfriend. They both kept changing their stories about where they had seen Mark, Ysasaga-Cuevas said.

After doing her own investigation, she decided to get in touch with the Lubbock Police Department, hoping that an officer would find his last known whereabouts and produce a full report. Not only was she not taken seriously, Mark’s mother said, but she was also transferred around to give a report only over the phone.

Missing person reports are not uncommon. Lubbock police records indicate that 38 adults and juveniles were reported missing in 2012, the year Mark disappeared. LPD’s records show 273 people have been reported missing from 2010 to 2015, including 17 reported missing so far this year.

Mark 'Anthony' Ysasaga went missing on June 12, 2012.

Mark ‘Anthony’ Ysasaga went missing on June 14, 2012.

Charlotte Null, LPD’s records system manager, said people are reported missing for different reasons.

“A lot of times it is elderly people who have dementia or Alzheimers and they get lost,” Null said. “Other times, it is children who may have run away or just simply adults who forgot to tell someone they were going out of town.”

For example, Null said, a man recently reported missing by his family was found to have simply taken a bus to San Angelo, Texas.

The LPD records system contains limited information about adults or children reported missing. Details on the circumstances surrounding the alleged disappearance are generally lacking.

After LPD delayed the search for Mark, Ysasaga-Cuevas said she continued the efforts on her own. She went to Kinko’s to print flyers and distributed them in hopes of locating her son.

During the weekend of the Fourth of July parade in Lubbock, more than 200 people wore bright neon shirts with Mark’s picture on it. After almost three weeks, LPD finally took notice and moved his status from a runaway to a missing endangered child.

Ysasaga-Cuevas said she then took it upon herself to go to the house in the 3100 block of 27th Street, where friends had said Mark had been seen on the day of his disappearance. LPD was not going to send anyone to the house to search with her, she said, until she screamed and cussed out everyone in the office to get them to take notice.

The arrest warrant for Simental shows he was a tenant in the house, and 2012 was the first time LPD searched it.

Ysasaga-Cuevas said the house was filled with the stench of bleach. The oven appeared ruined from what she believed to be meth production. The carpet had been removed from the house, as if to hide something. The arrest warrant confirms the landlord and other witnesses said Simental did have the carpets replaced.

She said after she and the officers finished searching the house, they walked out the back door to the gate. It was then she completely lost it.

“They opened the gate,” she said with tears in her eyes, “and one of my son’s socks and shorts were on the floor (on the ground outside), the clothes he was last in.”

She said the detectives picked them up as evidence. According to the arrest warrant, officers went back into the house and removed floorboards for a closer examination. Stains on the underside of the floorboards tested positive for blood.

Captain Jon Caspell with the Lubbock Police Department said it is routine for investigators to revisit unsolved cases.

“This new evidence led us to a local residence, where a suspected crime scene and blood DNA evidence was found,” Caspell said.

Caspell also said the DNA evidence was positively identified with Mark Ysasaga, which gave the detectives enough clues to believe Mark was murdered.

Mark’s mother remains upset that her son could not be placed on the Amber Alert System at the time of his disappearance.

According to amberalert.gov, the Amber Alert System was started in 2002 after a 9-year old girl named Amber Hagerman was abducted and killed in Arlington, Texas. To enter the Amber Alert system, a missing child must be either under 13 and considered in immediate danger, or up to 17 years old and believed by law enforcement to have been taken away unwillingly.

Department of Public Safety officer Bryan Witt said the Amber Alert System is very effective. It sends out alerts through multiple communication platforms. Witt said this is vital to helping find children who have been abducted because alerts contain description of the child, the suspect and the car they might be traveling in.

“Look how many people are traveling each and every day and they see a description of the vehicle and tag,” Witt said. “So many eyes out there, it’s like unlimited officers out there, additional officers that are our eyes out there looking for the vehicle, so it’s very effective.”

Mark’s case, however, did not meet the criteria. His mother said she felt she was on her own.
A few months after her son went missing, she hired a private investigator, Chuck Foreman in Lockhart, Texas. Foreman owns a non-profit organization, CFSI International, that helps find missing children.

“Chuck came in and did his work for about a month,” she said. “He came up with nothing, just like my son had vanished into thin air.”

Foreman, who is currently working on 30 active missing children cases, said he has a special place in his heart for the Ysasaga family.

“Mark is my baby,” Foreman said. “I love that family and want to help them find Mark so much.”

He said Mark’s case had two leads, one positive and one negative.

“We really think Mark got involved in something way out of his league,” Foreman said. “We really think he got caught up in the drug game and pissed someone off.”

Foreman said he sees it all too well — drug lords using young kids to do their dirty work for them.

“We honestly think he is in Mexico,” Foreman said. “We received a tip from a video that may be a lead to him being down there.”

The negative lead suggested Mark was dead.

Foreman said Simental had been a person of interest all along, adding that Simental had been offered less time in prison in exchange for information about Mark’s disappearance.

March 28th is Mark's birthday as well as "Missing Person's Day" in Lubbock, Texas.

March 28 is Mark’s birthday as well as “Missing Person’s Day” in Lubbock, Texas.

On June 12, it will have been three years since Mark went missing. His mother recently held a balloon release on his would-be 18th birthday. At the party, she revealed a proclamation from Lubbock City Councilman Victor Hernandez to declare March 28, Mark’s birthday, Missing Person’s Day in Lubbock.

“It means a lot to me,” she said. “It means they recognize him as a person, they see what I struggle with every day. People need to be aware he is still missing. He’s not a runaway, he’s not just out of my reach. Something happened.”

Mark’s mother said she had known for over a month now that the new detectives on her son’s case had found evidence to pursue murder charges. She said the detectives asked her to not reveal the charges until they had had enough time to gather the information they needed.

Ysasaga-Cuevas said the family is trying to process everything that has happened and figure out the next step.

“I feel like we are closer to having closure, but I don’t think we can fully have closure until my baby is brought home to me,” she said.

Mark’s family is not alone. According to missingkids.com, there are 233 active missing children cases in Texas alone.

The investigation remains open. LPD is offering up to $10,000 for information that leads to the body of Mark Ysasaga. Anyone with such information is urged to call the Crime Line at 806-741-1000.

Excel — missing people numbers

 Facebook for Mark 

Reported missing people to the Lubbock Police Department from 2010-2015:

Missing Person 2014 Missing Person 2015 as of 3-31-2015 Missing Person 01-01-2011 to 06-01-2011 Missing Person 06-01-2011 to 12-31-2011 Missing Person 2014 (1) Missing Person 2013 Missing Person 2012 Missing Person 2010

 

 

About Stacie Wirmel

Investigative reporter.