CringeNaeNaeBaby2 here, while the case is formally closed by CPD we’re still looking for more records through the same means but through Puerto Rico. This also gave us enough momentum that I have some Chicago archives looking for more footage for us. Thanks for covering the story! Hopefully we’re far from done.

"One of the lead investigators on this case, CringeNaeNaeBaby2"

i  love these communities. talking about a decades old missing persons case and a redditor named CringeNaeNaeBaby2 is the one to crack the case.

That poor, sweet girl. Technically solved, but not really. I hope she's had a good life and it wasn't trafficking.

Joanna, I hope you're doing well.

I’m glad this at least puts to bed all the people saying that the Joanna Lopez Slide was just some sort of placeholder slide the channel used that accidentally got aired. As someone who has worked for newspapers before, you NEVER use a real sounding name for placeholder text for that exact reason, we used LOREM IPSUM for all the placeholder text and the images had “placeholder- not for print” written all over them. Just always annoyed me how many people I saw pushing that idea when they would know there was no way that’s what it was if they had just talked to anyone in the visual media/ news space.

Wait wait, she was 13?! Damn that photo was more low quality than I thought. Before it was shown that the number went to the juvenile crimes division, I thought she was like early 20’s, based on the hair and glasses choice. Then when it was mentioned to be the juvenile crimes department, Im thinking ok, for sure 16-17 then. 13 is way, way younger than I expected her to be based on the photo! Its so low quality with the shading that it makes her look older than what she was. The hard shadows don’t help either. I almost wonder if that photo hindered instead of helped, because people may have been looking for a older teen or young adult, not a 13 year old kid!! Hell, the written description is more helpful than the photo!!

Edit: damn, what shoddy police work. This is awful. Its sounding like she was trafficked unfortunately, especially since she was 13 with a 20 year old. Disgusting and awful. I truly, truly hope she is ok now, truly. Its scary to think she was trafficked, and instead of getting actual evidence she was alive, they used something that could mean that someone else opened it in her name. How awful…

i’m torn on this. on one hand, joanna lopez deserves privacy, and  it’s very likely that no one wants to be reminded of a likely traumatic situation from their teenage years. on the other hand, this is one of the few internet mysteries that does show signs of human trafficking - as an orphan teenage runaway, she is much more likely to be victimized than most

1:25 I don’t like how the phrase “early 2020s” is starting to be a valid way to describe a time period

“Complainant” is the person reporting the incident, so not JL.

As someone from Puerto Rico, the case doesn't exactly seem so crazy to me if she's really here. If she herself was Puerto Rican, it's not crazy that she just got on a plane and moved here, we don't need to have a passport to go from US -> PR or PR -> US. I've known many Puerto Ricans living in difficult circumstances in the US as teens that just end up going back here, life gets better.

Also, Trujillo Alto might be close to the capital, but most of Puerto Rico, including the capital and metro area has a lot of rural zones, it's totally possible she's living in what we call "monte".

One important thing to note though: in PR, social security fraud is a bit common, without mentioning that "Joanna Lopez" is an incredibly common name here, I tried looking up on Facebook to see if I could find her, there were like 50 of them in PR alone, lol.

I genuinely hope she's in a better place in her life now, and if she's here, I hope she's living in peace in a community that loves her and has a loving family.

Honestly pretty sad. I really hope she wasn't trafficked.

now THIS is the type of notification i like to see

I uh... Feel the need to point out that a lot of comments are confusing Joanna Lopez with Selene Delgado.

What a bleak outcome. I hope Joanna is doing okay.

I hope she had and is still having a good life. It sounds like she was failed by many people, the police definitely being one of them.

I could see a middle aged woman misremembering the year she ran away, if that phone call was really her. Otherwise, I'm very worried that she did get trafficked. I hope she's perfectly fine and the only harm that ever came to her was just our worrying.

You must be kidding. This is horribly sloppy police work. “Well, she came up on a credit check, guess she’s not missing!” Today, no one would clear a missing person’s case without police in the local area putting eyes on her and speaking to her, confirming her identity, but that’s not indicated in the report. Either way it’s bad police work.

0:46 Agreed, there is hardly anything distinguishable about Joanna's random photo when it first appeared in the broadcast.  How is anyone supposed to tell who she is when the photo is like this?  She looks like she does have insect eyes.  Heck, I am impressed that people were able to clean up this photo and make Joanna look more like a person, instead of some character from an Analog Horror.

Since the police didn't make contact with her directly there is no way to know who's actually using her Social Security Number. One of my uncles got ahold of my SSN card because my mom idiotically kept it in her purse, made a copy of it, and sold it to at least 3 people that have since been convicted. The police would also think I'm currently alive and well in Puerto Rico. (Yes, that's where one of the fake cards was traced.) So, while this proves she's real (which I never doubted) it does not proves she's alive and well. I hope she is. I fear Selene DelGado's ending will be exactly the same. Sadly, we're never likely to know. It sucks that humans treat poor children as disposable, and black market trafficking is still so easy. Con a literal actual child into thinking sex equals love, and it's all over...