NEW ORLEANS — A 5-year-old girl with ties to New Orleans has been missing since at least 2021. In a bulletin this month, the NOPD said it is growing “more and more concerned” about the safety of Eriel Lynette Mack-Mariscal.
Mack-Mariscal was born in 2018. Court documents from Washoe County, Nevada, show that a woman who is not her biological mother filed for guardianship of her when she was still a newborn. The guardian took her to New Orleans soon after.
In 2019, Mack-Mariscal was taken to Children’s Hospital with a fracture in her upper left arm according to her profile on LSU’s FACES Lab, a missing persons database. The only known photo of her was taken around that time.
In 2021, the Washoe County court told the guardian she needed to file more guardianship papers. The NOPD said she did not respond to the order. The court hired a private investigator who spoke with the guardian and other family members, who claimed: “to have no knowledge of the location of the missing juvenile.” Mack-Mariscal was formally reported missing shortly after.
In May of 2024, the NOPD issued another bulletin asking for any information on Eriel’s whereabouts. It also stated that the guardian died in 2020, though that appears to contradict the 2021 bulletin. WWL Louisiana asked the NOPD whether it was the same guardian and so far the NOPD has not clarified.
If you have any information on where Eriel Lynette Mack-Mariscal is, call the NOPD’s child abuse department at 504-658-6045.
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