Stephanie Mayorga and Paige Escalera, have not been seen or heard from since April 15.
Two bodies have been found inside the car belonging to one half of a lesbian couple who went missing last month, just weeks after they got engaged.
Stephanie Mayorga, 27, and Paige Escalera, 25, vanished from their home in Wilmington, North Carolina and have not been seen or heard from since April 15.
The couple had moved in together and announced their engagement in March, and were were last seen in surveillance footage leaving their home in Escalera’s car.
Escalera’s sister Stevie Jenkins raised concerns about the couple’s disappearance after discovering that “every single one” of her sister’s friends were abruptly blocked from following her on social media – with the couple’s dog and Escalera’s phone left behind in their apartment when the pair vanished.
Wilmington Police Department put out a call for help at the time, desperate for information on their “suspicious” disappearance, but had no leads until this week.
On Monday (May 4) authorities discovered the grey Dodge Dart belonging to Escalera in a heavily wooded area with two bodies inside.
According to NBC News, Wilmington Police Department said in a statement on Tuesday (May 5) that the car had been found just after 3 pm outside the Watermark Marina “deep in the woods and covered in vegetation”.
Police said that the vehicle “may have been involved in an extremely high velocity crash” and added: “Due to the effects of decomposition, police cannot positively identify the two bodies at this time.”
Autopsies have been scheduled to identify the bodies.
Police also revealed that around the time of the couple’s disappearance, they had received a report of a car crash in the same area where Escalera’s car was found this week.
At the time, first responders searched the woods with flashlights but could not find any evidence of a crash or anyone with injuries.