The last time that Carmen Villagómez saw her daughter, 33-year-old Katherine “Kathy” Arias, was when she walked out of their Red Bank, New Jersey home with a blue duffel bag.
It was around 8 p.m. on June 21, 2022. “I assumed then that she was going to the laundromat to wash her clothes,” Carmen told Dateline, with whom she spoke in Spanish.
Kathy’s stepfather, Kenny DeGroot, got home around 11 p.m. that night. He told Dateline that when he arrived and asked where Kathy was, Carmen told him she thought Kathy may have been downstairs. “And I said, ‘She’s not down there,’” he remembered.
“When I saw that three hours had passed — it’s 11, nothing, she’s not there. She’s not picking up the phone, that’s when I had a bad premonition,” Carmen recalled.
They began searching for Kathy immediately. “We went out looking for her in the streets of Red Bank,” Kenny said.
Kathy was diagnosed with schizophrenia about three years prior to her disappearance.
“Before she got sick, she was a brilliant, brilliant person. I’m not saying that because I’m her mom — she really proved that,” Carmen said. “Teachers, principals, neighbors — they all congratulated me, you know? Because my daughter, she was intelligent, talented. And apart from that, she was a great person because she always helped other people.”
Carmen told Dateline she started noticing a change in Kathy when she was in her late 20s. “She had so many virtues,” she said. “That’s why, when she started changing — when I started seeing changes in her, I said, ‘What’s happening?’” Ultimately, Kathy was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Kenny, who had known Kathy for several years at that point, said it was hard for the whole family when her illness began to manifest. “She never admitted to any of it and didn’t want help,” he told Dateline. “It’s very hard to get somebody help that doesn’t want help.”
Kenny says Kathy’s mental health declined during the COVID-19 pandemic and she was deeply afraid of contracting the virus.
Shortly before Kathy went missing, both Kenny and Carmen contracted COVID. “We all live in the same place,” Kenny said. “Two days after we told her that we were sick with COVID is when she disappeared.”
That was June 21, 2022. Carmen and Kenny reported Kathy missing the next day.
Sergeant John Camarcas of the Red Bank Police Department told Dateline Kathy’s credit card activity indicated she bought a train ticket to Brooklyn, New York on June 21 — the night that she disappeared. The department was also able to track two unknown purchases on her credit card in New York on June 22.
Sergeant Camarcas was also able to track activity on Kathy’s Facebook account on July 23. “I did track her down to a — which, I believe it was her — to a wash-and-fold, a laundromat on 9th Avenue in New York,” he said. “I did a Facebook location through her Messenger and that put me to that IP address.”
Camarcas says officers went to the laundromat that day but could not find Kathy.
The Red Bank Police Department has distributed flyers across libraries and hospitals in an effort to bring Kathy home. The agency has also followed up on other possible sightings with no luck.
In August 2022, Kathy’s family received a letter from a storage unit in Brooklyn informing them that Kathy hadn’t made a payment on a small space she rented on June 22. “She put that duffel bag in there and never went back,” Kenny told Dateline. “Never paid or anything.”
The family retrieved the contents of the unit — which included an empty cell phone box and a laptop — and handed them over to the police. “We attempted to access the laptop,” Sergeant Camarcas said. “It was encrypted so we weren’t able to gain entry into it.” They did a search on the phone box which led to a government-subsidized cell phone. “That phone was deactivated on September 5, 2022,” he said. They were not able to gain any useful information from it.
When she went missing, Kathy had a phone with her that was connected to a VoIP provider. “It’s not a permanent number,” Sgt. Camarcas said. “Someone else could pick up that number at a later time [after it stops being used].”
Kenny DeGroot says the family texted and called his stepdaughter’s number many times to no avail. “I kept leaving messages, this and that. And finally somebody said, ‘Kathy’s not here,’” he said. “And that was it. It was dead after that.”
The family says Kathy has disappeared before, but never for more than a few months. She did not take her medication with her when she left her home in June 2022, which her parents say makes her extremely vulnerable.
Because of Kathy’s diagnosis, Sgt. Camarcas says she is considered a “missing endangered” adult. “I’ve taken extra steps to attempt to locate her as soon as I can so we can get her the mental health treatment that we think she may need,” he said. “I did everything I possibly can in this situation to, you know, attempt to locate her.”
The investigation into Kathy’s disappearance is still open. “I hope she’s still alive,” Sgt. Camarcas said. “Based on my current investigation, I don’t believe there’s any foul play associated with her.”
Ultimately, her parents just want her home. “I want her to know that I love her. And I want her home. I want her to come home. Please come home,” Kenny said. “Her mother is really — really needs her. Really needs her. And she’s got a nephew, too. A little 1-year-old nephew.”
Carmen Villagómez told Dateline she has hope her daughter is alive. Hope, however, doesn’t cancel out the pain. “This situation is very painful for me because I don’t have the life — the peace — that I had before, where I was able to focus on so many things and keep working,” she said. “There’s an absence where my heart used to be.”
Kathy is 5’0’’ and weighs approximately 100 lbs. She has brown hair and eyes and was wearing a gray t-shirt and blue jeans when she went missing. She was carrying a blue duffel bag, which has since been located. She would be 35 years old today.
Anyone with information about Katherine Arias’s disappearance is asked to contact the Red Bank Police Department at 732-530-2700.
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