Veronica Minjares Reyes attended Plant City High School. This 23-year-old mother of three boys disappeared on the morning of Saturday, January 18, 2020 from her home in Dover. Her Chevy Yukon sat parked outside her place. Her car keys and wallet with cash remained inside the vehicle. Her cell phone was never located. When she was last seen, Veronica was 4’11”, and 150 pounds. Her hair had been dyed burgundy, and she has brown eyes. She was wearing a white and grey long sleeve cropped shirt, jeans, and sandals. She has a mole near her left eye, and could be wearing glasses. On the night she disappeared, Veronica went out with a girlfriend. One of her sisters babysat her two oldest boys—five and seven—while her husband Francisco Reyes, stayed at home with the their one year old.
Veronica’s father, Fidencio Minjares, and her aunt, Petra Delgado, spoke to the Plant City Observer about her disappearance.
“On Sunday afternoon, the 19th of January, 2020, at 3:35 p.m., Veronica’s husband sent me a text,” Fidencio said. “He asked me if I knew her whereabouts. The husband said he hadn’t seen Veronica since she went out on Friday night. So, I texted her mom and her siblings.” Fidencio said. The family responded that they hadn’t seen Veronica.
“Veronica had gone out with a girlfriend of hers,” Petra said. “When they got done with the night out, her friend brought her back home. Then Veronica got her vehicle and went to go pick up her kids. All this was seen in the cameras in the neighborhood.”
“What really got me is….we reported her missing on Monday,” Fidencio commented. “Francisco was supposed to go to my ex-wife’s—Veronica’s mom’s— house to make the report. But he didn’t get there on time. He said, ‘I went the long way to get the boys something to eat.’ Why I found that very weird is, come Tuesday, I went to her house and looked at her Chromebook. Chromebooks are linked to Google phones, and they show your whereabouts. I was able to see where she went Friday night. It showed her location was at home that whole weekend. On Monday it moved—it was no longer at the house. What I was told by the Sheriff’s Department is when the husband went to report her missing, he told them that she had done it before. So, the cops looked at it like she was an adult and she took off. But she is real active with her kids—with her kids at school. Me and her would text each other every day—if not, every other day. It was always about school, it was always about her boys, or something silly. She was all about her kids. You can’t tell me she would leave her kids. The way I see it is, the Sheriff’s Department dropped the ball from day one. It took them four months before they even realized we had a problem.”
“That’s when they went back, asked to take fingerprints, and to check the mobile home,” Petra added.
“When they finally did investigate, and do their work, that is when the cameras next door showed the time she got dropped off—Saturday at 1:10 a.m.,” Fidencio continued. “Then she left to go pick up her kids at her sibling’s house. She got back by about 1:45 a.m. This whole time that she was out, the husband was blowing her phone up. He just kept calling her, and calling her. Her friend could hear her husband yelling at Veronica. The last phone call he made to her was at 12:54 a.m. When the cops asked him, where he was when she got home, he said, ‘I was sleeping.’ So, an angry husband, who called at 12:54 a.m. is going to be sleeping when she got home at 1:10 a.m.? They also found that his phone was very active that night when he was supposed to be sleeping. It showed that there was a lot of movement.” Francisco maintained that the oldest boy told him Veronica left again. “But we never got that from the boys,” Fidencio added. “They said when they got back they went to sleep.”
“The deputy sheriffs told me Francisco told them he didn’t go anywhere or do anything on Saturday night,” Fidencio continued. “But his phone tracked him going to Riverview, then the Skyway. They have a picture of him at 11:45 p.m. paying the toll at the Skyway. So they asked him about it—if he went to get the boys something to eat, and they showed him his photo at the Skyway. He said, ‘Oh, yeah, I went fishing.’ According to the timeline it shows he was there for 10 to 15 minutes. I love fishing. I am not driving an hour away for 15 minutes. I am out there for hours. The kids were one, four, and five years old. At that time of night, you are going to take three small boys fishing with you? So, all of Saturday goes by. Most of Sunday goes by, and that is when he decides to reach out and ask ‘Where is Veronica?’ Why would you wait almost two days to ask about her whereabouts?”
“Why did my daughter fall through the cracks?” Fidencio asked. “She didn’t get the help that she deserved.”
With others, Fidencio started a group called The Missing Struggle to support people whose loved ones are missing. “You have to move forward. You have to do what you have to do,” he said.
“The day Veronica was born, I went and cut my hair,” Fidencio said. I never let it grow back out. But she had found a picture of me with long hair, and she asked me to grow it back. I said, ‘I work outside all day long. I am not going to grow it back.’ So, I told myself I am not going to cut it…,” he couldn’t complete the sentence.
“….Until he hears something about her,” Petra finished for him.