In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month I’m featuring a Hispanic missing person every day from September 15 to October 15. Today’s case is Marisela Pino, who also may use the surname Pino-Vasquez or Vasquez-Pino. Marisela was eleven years old when she disappeared from Waterbury, Connecticut on March 20, 1993. She was last seen in the vicinity of a Nash’s Pizza & Groceries. The business, it seems, no longer exists, at least not under that name.
I found Cherry Street on Google Earth satellite view, but I don’t really know how to use Google Earth and I can’t figure out to access street view. Today, anyway, it appears to be in a working-class residential neighborhood. It may have appeared much different in 1993.
It bothers me that there is almost no information available on this case. Until recent years it wasn’t even listed with the NCMEC. I mean, this is a little girl, and it looks like this could well have been an abduction. By contrast, the unsolved disappearance of ten-year-old Bianca Lebron, a Hispanic child who went missing from Bridgeport, Connecticut eight years later, received a lot of media attention.
Does Marisela have a family? Do they still live in Connecticut? Perhaps there was a language barrier and that was a problem when her case came to getting the press attention it deserved?
Marisela has a possible scar on her left ankle, and a possible burn scar (described as “duck-shaped”) on her chest or abdomen. She was last seen wearing a black and gray jacket, a green and white shirt, jeans or a green denim skirt, white socks and blue shoes. If she is still alive today, she’d be 38 this month.
That’s all I know.
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