John Fernando Romero Yadaicela, a male who is now 22 years old, was only 15 when he disappeared during a journey that was supposed to reunite him with his family in the United States. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children records John as missing from Tucson, Arizona, with an official last-seen date of July 20, 2019. John was originally from Ecuador and is described as Hispanic, with black hair and brown eyes. Publicly available records do not provide his height or weight.
More detailed accounts of his disappearance indicate that he had traveled an extraordinary distance before reaching southern Arizona, leaving his home in Ecuador, traveling through Peru and Mexico, and then attempting to continue north through the desert toward Tucson.
John had spent much of his childhood in Azogues, Ecuador, where he was raised by his grandparents, Miguel Yadaicela and Mariana Sanango. According to an Ecuadorian news report published shortly after his disappearance, John's parents had moved to the United States about a decade earlier while he remained in Ecuador with his grandparents. He attended the Unidad Educativa UNE and, as his grandmother's health declined, John reportedly became increasingly involved in helping her around the home. His family eventually began planning for him to travel to the United States so he could reunite with his parents and meet two younger sisters who had been born there. John was accompanied on the first part of the trip by an uncle and a cousin. The three traveled from Ecuador through Peru, then took a flight into Mexico before making arrangements to continue toward the United States.
What happened during the final stage of that journey is pieced together from several sources, and some of the reported dates differ. The official NCMEC record uses July 20, 2019, as John's missing date, while the contemporaneous Ecuadorian account described contact with his family several days later. According to that report, John, his uncle, and his cousin were separated into different groups while preparing to cross toward the United States. John continued with people his relatives did not know. His grandparents later said John made a telephone call to his parents in which he sounded frightened and told them he had no money, food, or water. He reportedly said he was traveling through the desert toward Tucson and referred to a location described in the report as "Alta Sonora." During that communication, his cellphone battery was running out, and contact was lost. John's father, Manuel Romero, later relayed that the guide involved in the trip had said John was approximately two hours from a planned pickup point, but the guide subsequently stopped answering telephone calls.
Other missing-person records place John near Arizona State Route 86, around mile marker 126 or 127, while he was continuing his journey toward the Tucson area. Route 86 crosses a vast and sparsely populated stretch of southern Arizona, including lands west of Tucson, making the circumstances described by John's family especially concerning. John had been expecting to reach his mother and complete a long-awaited family reunion, but the anticipated contact never occurred. His grandparents publicly appealed to Ecuadorian consular officials and U.S. authorities for help determining what had happened to their grandson, expressing their anguish at not knowing whether he had become stranded, reached a shelter or detention facility, encountered someone who harmed him, or suffered an emergency somewhere along the route. The Tohono O'odham Nation Police Department is identified as the investigating agency, and John's NCMEC case number is 1364524; information can be provided to the department at 520-383-3275.
In overview, John's story began with a teenager leaving the Ecuadorian home where his grandparents had raised him and undertaking a difficult international journey for what should have been a hopeful purpose: joining his parents and younger sisters in the United States. He successfully traveled through Peru and Mexico and reached the southern Arizona region, but after being separated from the relatives accompanying him, his circumstances became increasingly uncertain. The frightening telephone account described by his family, the loss of communication when his phone battery failed, the reported proximity to a pickup point, and the isolated desert location associated with his last movements have left few firm answers about what happened afterward. Behind the missing-person records and case numbers is a family that expected John to arrive at the end of his journey and instead was left searching for information about the young man they loved and had waited so long to welcome home.Last Seen: Jul 20, 2019
