The Baja California Attorney General’s Office (FGE) arrested the partner of a 48-year-old Mexicali woman who has been missing from the Pórticos del Valle neighborhood. The suspect, identified as Lorenzo “N,” allegedly drugged Jaqueline Crecer Ponce with sleeping pills before fabricating a story to cover her disappearance.
Investigators say Lorenzo told authorities that Jaqueline had left voluntarily to be with another man. To bolster this narrative, he surrendered her child to the biological father, attempting to make it appear she had abandoned the family on her own.
Phone Data Broke the Case Open
The key break came through digital evidence. Investigators tracked Jaqueline’s cell phone and determined it never left Mexicali. The device remained in Lorenzo’s possession the entire time, directly contradicting his claim that she had departed the city willingly.
Phone location data has become an increasingly important tool for Baja California prosecutors in cases where suspects try to disguise a disappearance as voluntary abandonment. This tactic, where an intimate partner stages a departure to avoid suspicion, has appeared in multiple cases across the state in recent years.
Search Continues as Child Receives Support
Jaqueline’s whereabouts remain unknown. The FGE has Lorenzo in custody and is conducting an active search for the missing woman. Authorities are also providing support to the child caught in the case.
The arrest comes during a period of heightened scrutiny on intimate partner violence in Baja California. In March 2026, State Attorney General María Elena Andrade Ramírez announced that 32 municipal police officers had been arrested over the previous two years for high-impact crimes, including forced disappearances and homicide. Among those cases, a Mexicali police officer was arrested for the murder of his 27-year-old partner, Karen Denisse.
In July 2024, the disappearance and killing of 23-year-old Paola Bañuelos in Mexicali after she used a ride-hailing app drew national outrage and renewed attention to gender violence in the border city.
Anyone with information about Jaqueline Crecer Ponce’s whereabouts is urged to contact the FGE. This story was first reported by The Baja Post.