On January 11, 1996, young Karen Grajeda, just seven years old, vanished from outside her home in Tucson, Arizona, never to be seen again. As the 30th anniversary of this tragic event approaches, the quest for answers remains relentless.

What happened to Karen Grajeda?

Just days before this somber anniversary, on January 7, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) teamed up with the Tucson Police Department to renew their plea for any information that might bring resolution to this cold case. “For three decades, Karen’s family has been caught in an agonizing search,” expressed John Bischoff, Vice President of the NCMEC Missing Children Division. “No family should endure such uncertainty. Every piece of information counts, and it takes just one person to come forward to provide the answers this family has longed for.” Accompanying the renewed appeal is an age-progressed image depicting how Karen might appear today, at age 37.

Inside the Karen Grajeda missing person investigation

On the fateful evening Karen disappeared, she was joyfully roller-skating with her friends and her young sister, Alejandra, as the family recounted in an NCMEC blog post. Karen was last seen when she stepped inside their apartment briefly to drop off her skates before returning outside to play, while her mother, Rosalba, was preparing dinner. When dinner was ready, Rosalba called her daughters inside, but only Alejandra came back. “I remember Mom saying, ‘Go back out and get Karen,’” Alejandra recalled. “But when I went to find her, she was nowhere to be found.”