It has been a year since Mercedes Clement went missing. On October 11, 2020, Clement parked her car in a visitor’s spot at the Koko Apartments, near Harry Hines Boulevard in Dallas. She has been missing since. A year after her disappearance, her family still seeks the public for help finding her.
Security footage obtained by Dallas police shows her meeting a man and going inside his apartment. However, there seems to be a gap in the footage, even though he is seen on video several hours later. “That car pulls up,” Clement’s mother Alicia Gazotti explained. “He walks up to that car, they open the trunk, they move a bunch of stuff around in the trunk, they close the trunk. And then everything cuts out, gone.”
Police spoke with the man at the apartment but have not determined if he is a suspect. The department launched a homicide investigation into the case in July.
Clement’s family said that people have tried to capitalize on their willingness to find their daughter at all costs. According to the family, they have been given misleading tips and have dealt with fake ransoms.
Gazotti urges someone with accurate information that could lead to finding her daughter’s whereabouts to come forward and help. “I don’t want to go through this anymore,” she said.
“Mercedes 100% would make you feel like you were her family and she would do anything for you,” Gazotti said of her missing daughter. “The world is not a better place without her.”
According to Alicia Gazotti, Clement was five months pregnant when she went missing. She also left her five-year-old son Darryn behind. Darryn misses his mother and, like the rest of the family, would love to have her back. “I miss you mom and I love you,” said the boy who was four when his mother went missing.
Clement’s mother asks for the public’s help in finding Clement, for Darryn’s sake.