Family of missing Florida teen makes desperate plea
The cousin of missing Florida teenager Miya Marcano is calling for the family of a dead maintenance man, who was named a person of interest in her disappearance, to “speak up” as authorities expand their search.
Marcano, 19, a student at Orlando’s Valencia College, was reported missing after she missed a flight back to her home in Fort Lauderdale on Friday. She was last seen near her Orlando apartment complex where she lived and worked that same day.
A person of interest in her disappearance, Armando Caballero, a maintenance man at the Arden Villas Apartment complex where she lived and worked, was found dead on Monday of an apparent suicide.
“To his family, if you know anything, you need to speak up,” Marcano’s cousin Caili Sue told Local10 News.
“No matter what information you know, you may think it’s so insignificant, if you texted Armando any time between last week and now, you said ‘hey’ and you saw that the message was delivered, provide that information.”
“I truly believe that my cousin is alive,” she added.
Investigators say that Caballero, 27, entered her apartment with a master key just before she was last seen. Marcano had repeatedly denied his romantic advances while living there, police said.
Family members went to her apartment on Saturday morning and found her bedroom in disarray, with a broken necklace on the floor and blood on a pillow. She is known to be meticulously clean and known to always be wearing the necklace, according to reports.
A man matching Caballero’s description was seen carrying suspicious items, including a blanket Marcano’s family has said is hers, into an unknown building on Saturday morning — hours after Marcano was last seen alive, according to WESH 2.
The complex is close to the University of Central Florida but is surrounded by a heavily wooded area, according to Local10.
Law enforcement informed tenants that they would be searching storage areas.
The search has also since expanded into the wooded areas around the complex as well as New Smyrna Beach and near the Longwood where Caballero was found dead.
A candlelit vigil is scheduled for Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at Flanagan High School in Pembroke Pines.
