Elias Junior Monroy was a two-week-old male infant when he was last seen on February 2, 1987, in Los Angeles, California. He had been born on January 15, 1987, and was still in the earliest days of life when his mother, Maria Pacheco, took him to LA-USC Medical Center, located in the 2000 block of Marengo Street, for a routine well-baby checkup. At the time, Elias was described as a Hispanic male infant with brown hair and brown eyes, about 1 foot 9 inches tall and weighing approximately 8
pounds. He was wearing white clothing, including a long-sleeved shirt, knit sweater, knit pants, socks, and a belt, and he was wrapped in a cream-colored blanket.
While Maria waited in the pediatric clinic waiting room, a woman approached her and began speaking with her in a friendly manner. Maria was recovering from a Caesarean section and was having difficulty walking, and Elias began crying during the visit. The woman offered to hold the baby while Maria went to look for baby formula. When Maria returned, both the woman and Elias were gone. The disappearance unfolded in a place where a mother should have been able to feel safe: a medical clinic, during an ordinary appointment, in the middle of a routine day.
The woman who took Elias was described as Hispanic, in her late twenties to early thirties, approximately 5 feet to 5 feet 2 inches tall, and weighing around 135 to 140 pounds. She reportedly had a medium-dark complexion and black hair that was frosted a lighter color. She was wearing a yellow blouse and was described as well-groomed. Despite the description and a sketch associated with the case, she was not identified in the public case summaries. The nature of the abduction led investigators to consider the possibility that Elias may have been taken by someone who intended to raise him as her own child.
As police investigated Elias’s abduction, they found a potentially similar incident that had occurred in Hesperia, California, roughly 70 miles away. In that case, a Hispanic woman matching the general description of Elias’s abductor approached another mother at a post office and asked to hold her baby. When the mother refused and later reached the parking lot, the woman asked again, and a male apparent accomplice attempted to pull the baby from the mother’s arms. That mother escaped by running into a nearby store with her child. Authorities were not able to publicly confirm that the same woman was involved in both incidents, but public case summaries state that investigators considered the connection highly probable.
For many years, Elias’s case was listed as a non-family abduction and remained publicly known as the case of a newborn taken from a Los Angeles pediatric clinic. Because no photographs of Elias were available after birth, later public awareness efforts relied on age-progressed imagery created to show how he might look as an adult. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children was listed as connected to the case through case number 603859, and NamUs listed the case as MP14980, with the date of last contact recorded as February 2, 1987.
The investigating agency has reported that Elias Monroy was found alive, meaning this is no longer an active missing persons case. Publicly available online summaries do not provide a confirmed exact date or detailed circumstances of when he was located, so those details should not be stated as fact. The case began as the frightening abduction of a newborn from a hospital clinic, continued for years through public appeals, age-progressed images, and questions about whether Elias had grown up unaware of his true identity, and now stands as a resolved missing person case in which official reporting indicates he was found alive.Last Seen: Feb 2, 1987
