The Disappearance of Maribel Oquendo-Carrero: A 40-Year Mystery That Still Haunts Florida
By Danielle Fausz In December of 1982, a nine-year-old girl named Maribel Oquendo-Carrero left her home in Homestead, Florida, to buy candy — and never came back. What began as an innocent walk to the corner store became one of Florida’s most haunting missing-child mysteries, a case tangled with family violence, trauma, and secrets that still linger more than forty years later. A Simple Errand That Changed Everything It was a Monday afternoon when Maribel asked her mom if she could go to a nearby convenience store called Food Spot #21 . A friend of her father’s had given her some quarters, and she wanted to buy candy. She wore a white T-shirt, blue-and-pink pants, and beige-and-brown shoes. The store clerk remembered her well — a sweet, polite little girl spending five dollars on candy before walking outside and climbing into a waiting car. That moment was the last confirmed sighting of Maribel Oquendo-Carrero. The Family’s Dark History Investigators quickly began to sus...
