‘This has devastated our family.’ There are 63 missing people in Rochester right now

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – There are 63 families in our city with missing children. I was on the street with one family today.

Maureen Harrison stapled posters of her son Sean Marrero along Moulson Street, near the corner of Norton and Joseph Avenue. We stood outside the home he shared with a friend, the home where Sean was last seen.

“(He) told her that he hoped he didn’t die and left and has never been seen since,” Harrison said. 

Brean: “What has this done to you?”

Harrison: “This has devastated our family. We are so desperate for information on what happened to Sean. He has children. We all love him. And we need to know what happened to Sean. Where is Sean?”

Marrero’s name is at the top of the list of missing people from Monroe County on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

Another name is Domonique Holley-Grisham. He was 16-years-old when he vanished in 2009 in the city. His mother lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Brean: “Do you still hold out hope that you’re going to see him someday?”

Mozell Jones-Grisham, son Dominique missing since 2009: “Yes and I ask God to give me strength every day for whatever comes, whether he be found alive, deceased, anything. Just give me the strength because right now that’s all I can pray and hope for is closure.”

“It’s absolutely heartbreaking,” said Mary Williams Diers, founder of WNY Missing and Unidentified Persons.

Just scroll through the photos on Williams Diers’ missing persons Facebook account and it’s one missing person after another. One of them was Jakarah Lopez-Moore.

Brean: “You had some serious concerns about this case right from the beginning. Why was that?”

Williams Diers: “I knew right out of the gate that for them to put that out there as soon as she went missing that there was reason for them to believe that she was in danger.”

Williams Diers is based in Jamestown, New York but has chapters in Rochester, Olean and Buffalo where she says Buffalo Police can get up to 22 missing person cases a week.

Williams Diers: “How many of those 22 cases can one detective put boots on the ground begin searching in the first 48 hours which we all know is crucial in missing persons and unsolved cases?

Brean: “And that’s where you come in, to get that word out?”

Williams Diers: “Yes. Yes.”

Harrison says when her son Sean left the home on Moulson Street, he left his phone, wallet and photos.

He hasn’t been seen on security camera video, his social security card hasn’t been used and his Medicaid account closed due to lack of activity.

Brean: “Do the police have any leads?”

Harrison: “The police have zero leads.”

Brean: “Nothing?”

Harrison: “Nothing.”

Brean: “My goodness.”

Today, Harrison was thinking about Jakarah Lopez-Moore’s family.

“Oh, I hope they find comfort in knowing they have their child returned back to them. How horrible that that child has passed,” she said. “But they have the ability to have closure. Sean’s family needs to have closure. We need to know what happened to Sean.”