Marlana McElvaine
On a Tuesday in September 2010, Marlana McElvaine hugged her two children goodbye and left for Tucson Mall for her job at JCPenney.
After her shift ended, McElvaine drove away from the mall and disappeared.
Twelve years later, the case has gone cold. But the passion that Dian McElvaine, puts into her quest for answers about what happened to her daughter still burns hot.
McElvaine stays in contact with Tucson police detectives and tries to keep awareness up about her daughter’s disappearance, hoping someone who knows something will come forward.
Dian McElvaine didn’t speak to her daughter the day she disappeared, but she sensed something was amiss.
“I didn’t know, but I knew. When I got the call, I knew something happened,” she said. “But I knew she wasn’t going to walk away from her kids, and she was very close to me and my daughter.”
Marlana McElvaine was originally reported missing two days earlier, on Sept. 12, but Tucson police later received information that she’d actually gone to work two days later, said Detective Steven Acevedo.
“That was information her boyfriend at the time had reported to the family,” Acevedo said of the inconsistent disappearance date. “Both her sister, her mom, her very close friend and family find it to be very odd ... that she would not be with her children and that their mom would just pick up and leave,” Acevedo said.
At the time, Marlana McElvaine’s children were 4 months and 30 months old. She had their names — Athena and Xavier — tattooed on her left shoulder.
“The last day at work, she finishes her shift in the evening at around 10 p.m. and she is not heard from again,” Acevedo said.
A little more than a week later, a Tohono O’Odham police officer found the missing mom’s car abandoned near South Cardinal Avenue and West Valencia Road. The keys were in the ignition and her work identification inside, Acevedo said.
“That was of course really suspicious and of note, but again, not much to go off,” Acevedo said. “There was this idea that maybe foul play was suspected, but unconfirmed.”
At the time, police investigated the missing-persons case as a homicide, saying that foul play was suspected, according to Arizona Daily Star archives.
Since the recovery of the car, there hasn’t been much in the way of new information, Acevedo said, adding that detectives have received a handful of speculative or unsubstantiated tips over the years.
Despite the lack of new information, Dian McElvaine hasn’t given up hope.
She contacts investigators each year.
Marlena McElvaine’s disappearance is classified as a long-term missing person’s case, but with no signs of life, it’s regarded as a cold case homicide, Acevedo said.
“Dian and her daughter have been very proactive in ensuring the investigation continues,” Acevedo said.
He said they’ve had conversations with Dian McElvaine about what resolution in her daughter’s disappearance would look like. “Our interest is the prosecution piece, but that’s a long time coming also,” he said.
In 2012, Dian McElvaine added Marlana’s case to The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, a nationwide registry for missing person’s in the United States. She’s been active over the years in sharing her daughter’s story, hoping to keep her the case on people’s minds.
Dian McElvaine, left, poses with her daughter Marlana McElvaine, who has been missing since September 2010. Anyone with information is asked to call 88-CRIME.
Dian McElvaine said her daughter was hoping to go to nursing school. She called her daughter an amazing person with a gorgeous personality, adding that friends from middle school still reach out to the family.
While Dian McElvaine said it would break her heart if Marlena’s remains were discovered, it would be helpful for the case — and for closure.
Wednesday would have been Marlana McElvaine’s 40th birthday, an occasion her family celebrated as they do every other year.
“We miss her so much. We live with her memory every day, though,” Dian McElvaine said.
