In the summer of 1998, 24-year-old Valerie Ann Short traveled from St. Augustine, Florida, to visit her ex-husband and their two young daughters in Tucson, Arizona. This trip would be the last time her family in Florida would ever hear from or see her again. Valerie seemed to vanish after arriving in Arizona, leaving behind a deepening mystery and a family desperate for answers that would not begin to surface for many years.
The exact date of her disappearance remains uncertain, compounding the difficulty for those searching for her.
The years following Valerie's trip were marked by confusion and a frustrating lack of official progress. In March of 1999, Valerie's sister formally reported her as a missing person in Florida. While Valerie was initially entered into a national law enforcement database, her case was removed in 2002 for reasons that have never been clarified. Her family, unaware that she was no longer officially listed as missing, continued to hope for a breakthrough. Their uncertainty was amplified in the mid-2000s when they spoke with Valerie's ex-husband, who has since passed away. He claimed that as far as he knew, Valerie had returned to Florida, a statement that was in direct opposition to the family's reality. The last official record of Valerie was a contact with the Tucson police in the summer of 1999, after which all traces of her seemed to cease.
It wasn't until June of 2024 that the case was officially revived when Valerie's sister, having endured more than two decades of silence, contacted the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office again. At the time she went missing, Valerie was described as a white female, between 5'4' and 5'5' tall, and weighing around 110 to 120 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. She had distinct tattoos on her ankle: one of a flower and another of a heart bearing the name 'John.' There was also information suggesting she might have traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, at some point. The overview of Valerie's case is a tragic narrative of a young mother who disappeared after traveling cross-country to see her children, leading to a cold case characterized by conflicting information, a puzzling administrative history, and decades of unresolved questions for her loved ones.Last Seen: Sep 1, 1998
