Yesica Martinez's family continued to process the loss of the young mother, wife, sister, and friend on Sunday after they discovered her body days after her car was found crashed and abandoned in the area.
Mario Morales, Martinez's husband, said she was working a new job as a server at a bar in North Dallas Thursday evening into early Friday morning when she messaged him that she was on her way home at about 12:40 a.m.
Morales didn't hear back from her and assumed she decided to stick it out at work, though he did call and text numerous times. He then went to her job but did not find her.
“First I called the police to see what we could do about a report. He's like, 'Well, it's not uncommon for young ladies to you know, break up or leave a relationship just that way without giving notice,'" Morales recalled. "I kind of sat on that for a few minutes and I was like, 'No I'm going to go to the police station and make a report,' and he kind of said the same thing again. I pushed a little bit further. I said, 'I just want to know if she might have had a wreck, or to tell me there's a hospital that she might have been reported to be in."
Get top local stories in DFW delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
He said once he gave the license plate number to his wife's car, law enforcement was able to see the vehicle had been involved in a crash.
According to Morales, the officer said the 911 call sounded like Martinez was arguing with a male in the car. Morales continued to reach out to other precincts trying to file a missing persons report.
The Dallas County Sheriff's Office said it did work a crash Friday at about 1 a.m. on southbound Interstate 35E at the connector to Woodall Rodgers. At the time no one was around the vehicle, according to the sheriff's office.
“After that, the sheriff's office showed up and they found the car abandoned and just got it towed," Morales said. "They didn't search the area. They didn't even try to look for a hurt person or somebody running from a car accident they just towed it and said it was abandoned."
In an email response, the sheriff's office said, "Deputies checked the area at the time of the accident and after Ms. Martinez was reported missing, but did not locate her in the immediate area of the accident."
Morales saw just how bad the crash was after seeing the car at the impound lot where he found his wife's phone, glasses, passport and sweatshirt inside the vehicle, but she was still missing.
Martinez's family started to gather and her older brother, Dario Manzo, flew in from California to help with the search.
"None of them could take the time to actually try and find her," said a tearful Manzo. "It took us two hours to find my sister."
Dallas Police confirmed the identity of the woman whose body was found in the 800 block of N. Stemmons Freeway Southbound Service Road. It's located right under where the crash happened early Friday morning.
Manzo said he noticed an abandoned building and tried to get in with no success. He eventually found two people on site who claimed to be security guards and asked about his sister. The two people said they do routine walks around the building often and that Manzo was not allowed access to the building's grounds.
The building, located at 899 N Stemmons Freeway, is currently not in use and is the old Cabana Hotel.
Manzo said they went back around the front of the building trying to get through the fence when his other sister saw Martinez's body through one of the fence openings closest to the service road.
"It's heartbreaking and it really makes me sad to know that in a city like Dallas with so many police officers and sheriffs that none of them could take the time to actually try and find her, like I said, it took us two hours to find my sister, and they couldn't do anything about that," Manzo said.
“I’m in a daze right now, I do believe this is a nightmare we will wake up from and it's an emotional roller coaster right now, there’s moments where it hits you in waves. It's just very confusing," said Morales, who was married to her for three years.
He said they were supposed to celebrate their daughter's second birthday next month, but now they're grappling with the fact she won't have a mother to grow up with.
Much remains unknown as to what led up to the crash and how Martinez's body ended up behind a fenced-off area.
Dallas Police said the cause of death will be determined by the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office. A spokesperson for the Dallas Police said they're waiting on the autopsy report and for now the woman's death is being investigated as an unexplained death.
