Missing at the Airport: Paula Del Mundo
Jacqui: This is They were here, a podcast about missing and murdered LGBTQ+ people- stories too often ignored, mishandled, or buried. Each episode, we look closely at one life, one disappearance, and the people left searching for answers. Maybe you hold the key to what happened today, the story of Paula Del Mundo.
Paula was 59 years old when she vanished from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on September 15th, 2019. An airport so large, it has its own zip code. A sister, a Catholic, a nursing assistant, and a proud immigrant. Paula had waited decades for the life she was living, and then suddenly she was gone. To understand what happened to Paula, I hopped on a Facebook video group chat with five of her sisters.
They have these group chats on a regular basis.
Sister: Hello? Hi. How's everyone?
Jacqui: They are from a family of 12, and the sisters I spoke to are spread between New York, California, Florida, and the Philippines.
Sister: This is. I am Yolanda,
Sister: I'm Lenor.
Sister: I am El.
Sister: I'm lta.
Jacqui: It's very important to them that you understand not just the painful story of her disappearance, but also the joy she brought into their lives because English isn't their first language.They wrote down some of their thoughts.
Sister: Paula is just a year younger than me, so we've always been really close. We grew up in the Philippines and since we were so close in age, we naturally shared the same habits, the same friends, and we were always hanging out together.
Jacqui: Back in high school, their parents were super strict.
Sister: So we sneak out night to go clubbing or meet friends.
Just Paula always been the life of the party. Fun, full and energy, but at the same time, she's incredibly caring as a sister. The type who's always there for you, no questions asked. You could always count on her to make you feel loved and supported.
Jacqui: Her sisters describe a woman who was vibrant and warm.
Someone who laughed easily and gave generously
Sister: Her signature praise. It's crazy. It means in the Philippines, the word is “kaka” in our language and is often followed by a laughter. She will call me every day asking what I am doing, what will be my food for work, and she will bring me homemade food at work since we work in the same place.
She's very organized and she makes sure her apartment is always tidy. She's very good at saving money. She always packs her lunch and brings lunch for me when she knows I am working.
Jacqui: Paula's devotion to family was just as steady as her faith. She's a devoted Catholic who prays a rosary and never misses Sunday mass.
Her sister tells us Paula lived for others. She stepped in to support her single mom, sister.
Sister: She's willing to even spend for the education of, uh, of my daughter-
Jacqui: and help friends in need.
Sister: They would even tell me one time they owe her a lot because they have a, a one family member who is very sick in bed and Paula, without hesitation.Gave money.
Jacqui: Paula was only hardworking and responsible. She was glamorous, stylish, and had a flare for fun.
Sister: Paula has a fondness, hats and scarves with an extensive collection. Her tall slender frame allows her to wear them with poise. She also had a strong affinity for animals. During her time in the Philippines, he owned a Dalmatian dog, an owl.And maintained a beautiful aquarium with various fish species.
Jacqui: She's a good dancer,
Sister: Especially the swing dance. The last dance by Donna Summer is her preferred song.
Jacqui: The sisters recall Paula competing in beauty and dance contests and winning. She also delighted in fashion and luxury with a particular taste for Louis Vuitton bags.
Sister: She loves Louis Vuitton bags, and she would give some to me.
Jacqui: Paula's personality was magnetic. She filled rooms with laughter, generosity, and care.
Sister: Paula exhibits a vibrant and dynamic personality. She's the life of the party. Her infectious laughter has a prop pound impact on those surrounding her and elevating the mood
Jacqui: even if she faced struggles.
Paula's sister saw her resilience.
Sister: Paula has faced numerous challenges in life, including. Acceptance as being gay in our traditional family, her greatest passion in life is to travel and visit our family in the Philippines and hang out with her gay friends.
Jacqui: For years, Paula dreamed of moving to the United States.
Her sister Lenore petitioned for her to immigrate, and Paula tracked her case closely.
Sister: During those years of waiting, Paula was vigilant on her petition status. After 23 years of waiting, her immigrant status was approved. On July 4th, 2015, Paula proudly became a naturalized US citizen. As a gift, I gave her an American flag scarf, which she was very excited to wear during the old taking ceremony.She's very patriotic.
Jacqui: Paula saw America as an opportunity and she embraced it wholeheartedly. In California, she trained as a nursing assistant.
Sister: She excelled as one of the top students in her class. She promptly gained employment in a skilled nursing facility in our area.
Jacqui: Later she moved to Tampa, Florida where she worked at the VA hospital with her sister Lolita.
Sister: She was very happy and looking forward to move to Tampa. She's a hardworking person. She's loved both by her coworkers and patients too. She loves her work. This was evidenced by numerous gold star awards.
Jacqui: The Gold Star Awards were from other nurses, doctors, and patients, and described her as always having a smile on her face, being a good listener, helping patients at their most vulnerable in a really kind way.
Her sisters described her as meticulous and proud of her work, but also someone who balanced hard work with enjoyment. In the weeks leading up to a vacation in Cozumel, Mexico, Paula wasn't herself.
Sister: She seemed quiet and told me she's having a second thought of going for a 10 day vacation to Cozumel, Mexico.
Jacqui: She had recently sustained a work-related injury and underwent a shoulder surgery.
Sister: while recuperating, she became quiet, loss of interest around her.
Jacqui: After a few months, she gained over her energy back and started working again, but she wasn't able to work overtime like she had before.
Sister: She was concerned of bills to pay and her income was not enough.
I offered financial support, but she declined. She became unavailable in our group chat, our phone conversation became brief.
Jacqui: The sisters began noticing a change in her mood, which concerned them.
Sister: I don't think Paula is excited on the last trip compared to her previous trips. She's having second thoughts of living maybe because she doesn't have enough money to spend.
Jacqui: Paula's sisters also worried about her mental health. They knew she had struggled in the past. And said she had a history of substance induced psychosis and experienced paranoia.
Sister: I know that Paula had a history of schizophrenia and paranoia and was taking psych meds in the Philippines, but uh, when she arrived. USA. She told me that she's not taking anymore psych medication and now emotionally stable, and I believe her because while pursuing her nursing assistant course, she was the top of the class with honors. She passed the certification exam and soon able to get a job. Few months before her trip, she will call me and said if she can stay in my house. She was hearing voices in her head. My sister Lilia, who is a nurse practitioner, convinced her to see a psychiatrist, but she didn't go and said, this costs money.
I don't need it.
Jacqui: On September 14th, 2019, Paula flew from Tampa to the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport for a connecting flight to Cozumel. She never made it on the connecting flight.
Sister: Paula called me around 10:30 in the morning—Texas time.
Jacqui: She said she couldn't find the gate for her connecting flight to Cozumel, Mexico.
Sister: I advised her to ask for directions. There were missed calls from both of us until I finally talked to her around 7:00 PM that she did that board the plane for Cozumel, and once to go home.
Jacqui: She asked her sisters to help her buy a ticket home, and they agreed. Paula just needed to give them the flight info. She said her cell phone battery was dying
Sister: And her cell phone battery is dying. She sounded nervous.
Jacqui: The text that followed frightened her sisters,
Sister: It was alarming, incoherent, and paranoia. She texted me mostly in our language, but uh, I will translate it in English that somebody is trying to set her up and put her in trouble. “I did not do anything wrong.” Sometimes she's lonely and invited people she doesn't know in her apartment that she did not do anything wrong and God is her witness.
Jacqui: But she said her cell phone battery was dying.
Sister: Let's talk before I get lost here on the phone. You will not see me anymore.
Jacqui: That same night the sisters began calling airport police.
Getting help was harder than they ever imagined. No one knew the flight information or what Paula was wearing at first. Paula's family didn't even know which police department had jurisdiction. By the time they got answers, days had passed
Sister: Those early days of searching we have so many questions to ask. We don't know where to start, where to get the police report, and then Tampa police said to obtain the Police report in Texas since Paula was missing in Texas. Then Texas Police said it's Tampa because Paula's residence is in Tampa, so it’s so confusing.
Jacqui: The department that had jurisdiction was a Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Police Department.To learn more, we spoke with Sergeant Bobby Castillo and Detective Knietz .
Knietz: My name is Detective Knietz. I've been here at the airport for about seven years, a detective for about three. The case that we're discussing today was not one of my cases. It happened a little bit before I came up here, but definitely something that I'm invested in and hopefully, I don't know, maybe one day we'll get answers.
Bobby: My name is Bobby Castillo. I'm a sergeant here at UFW Airport Police. I'm assigned to the criminal investigation division, specifically supervise the Crimes Against Persons section and the detective Knietz and I adopted this case back in 24. Uh, we have been rolling with it since.
Jacqui: What many don't realize is that the DFW airport is essentially its own city.
Bobby: We are actually 30 square miles. So not only do we have the main terminal area, we call it the central terminal area, but we have 30 square miles of jurisdiction. It's the third busiest airport in the world. We have our own post office, our own zip code. We are our own police department. We are not attached to any uh, specific city. As a police department, we are our own independent
Jacqui: Paula's disappearance is their only open and ongoing missing persons case.
Knietz: This is our only one, one and only.
Bobby: I take pride in working in this department. I'm glad this is the only one, because that gives us the availability to utilize a lot of resources, uh, towards, uh, finding Paula.
Jacqui: During the first few days of the search, the authority still didn't have her flight information. It wasn't until Lolita was able to get into her apartment as a co-signer two days later that she found the flight information. On September 20th, Yolanda and Lolita flew into DFW to look for Paula. They were quickly overwhelmed
Sister: Where to start? Who would we talk to? We are really, uh, we just went there hoping that we can find her. You know, something noticeable when we were there at the airport of DFW. It's a huge airport. There are a lot of charging stations. Paula could have if, if, if Paula's phone is dying, if she's in her right frame of mind, she could have charged her phone and it won't die.
Jacqui: They tried to walk the same path that Paula had traveled days before looking for some sign of her.
Sister: We were in a limbo until when we went, uh, back to our hotel. We realized it was so exhausting.
Jacqui: Eventually, detectives showed them the video of a woman and asked if it was Paula,
Sister: and we said yes, and we both cried because it was Paula.
Jacqui: She landed at DFW wearing a white shirt and lavender pants. From there, detectives pieced together her movements flying in from Tampa, wondering the terminals.
Knietz: We are very lucky and we have what we call our master control room, which is our camera operators. And so they were able to track her from landing from Tampa at one of our terminals and then expanding the search from watching her walk around the airport.
Sister: When I saw the footage in the video, it broke my heart. So sorry. Knowing Paula was so confused, I don't know where she was heading. She only stopped to use the restroom. No food or drink at all. Paula was so tired, confused, and lonely.
Jacqui: At one point she stopped pulling her rolling bag. It has never been found. She stops the rest many times, once at the curb of the police station.
Bobby: I know for the last time they were able to track her on camera. So she was able to be tracked from the terminals itself down to the outlaying part outside of where the planes part and stuff like that. It's a warehouse district. And surrounding this warehouse districts is hundreds of acres of just wall property, you know, trees, bushes, uh, everything you can think of.
She was the last observed on camera at 3:52 AM.
Jacqui: She's last seen walking past the Dallas-Fort Worth International airport sign, having no friends or family that lived in Fort Worth made the search for Paula, especially difficult. And then the COVID pandemic started, which slowed search efforts.
Bobby: I see there was ground searches and stuff like that, but more in depth searches. In early October, we reached out and had a local canine team conduct a search, so it's very big out here. So we're talking about a lot of, uh, square foot this year. So our drone team conducted a search, uh, in two parts. One with an October 23rd, 2019, and then our team came out during another church on November 6th, 2019.
Jacqui: They conducted another canine search, July 25th, 2020, at a little lake known as Trig Lake.
Bobby: And during that two day search, the canine showed, uh, some interest there. I'm assuming these canines jurors specifically book, uh, cadavers and they showed an area of interest. So a concern was what Paula potentially confused and fell into the lake or could something could have happened. A local city up here, uh, called Lewisville. They have a dive team, so they came in on August 6th and conducted a dive.
Jacqui: A second dive was conducted later on, both to no avail. In the meantime, her sisters were conducting their own searches by calling hospitals and jails.
Sister: The sergeant said, you don't have to do that. You don't have to keep calling the jail or the prison. Paula is already. In the National Crime Investigation Center, Paula have already the, the number, if a police officer arrested Paula and put to jail, they will enter her information and it'll plug out in their system in the registry that Paula is missing. When we were trying to get in touch with the psychiatric hospital asking for, uh, Jane Doe. Or another name for Paula and they will not give us information
Jacqui: Because of HIPAA privacy laws. It made it impossible to find out if Paula had been admitted anywhere. Detectives say they've also checked Paula's digital footprint, travel banking, and federal databases.
Bobby: So we tried put our, uh, federal agencies, our airline partners. There's been no signs of international travel. There's been no signs of domestic travel to the best of our knowledge. She was the last observed on camera at 3:52 AM on September 15th. It's a warehouse district, and surrounding this warehouse district, uh, is hundreds of acres of just wall property, you know, trees, bushes, uh, everything you can think of.
Jacqui: Then in November, 2020, a new lead was found during a search by a group called Canine Kings.
Bobby: During that time, there was the fabric located that potentially matched something Paula was wearing around her neck. And that piece of fabric has been submitted to the state lab to do a comparison to see that contains Paula's DNA,
Jacqui: The fabric remains in testing at the state crime lab.
Bobby: You know, science takes time. Texas is a very popular state. Very big state. So they prioritize typically DNA analysis, you know, homicides first, you know, sexual assaults, things like that. And we get it. But we hope soon enough that we get some answers on this comparison then, then at that point we will reach out to experts and see what we need to do to resume our, our search to find Paula.
Jacqui: It sounds as though no further searches are planned for Paula, which is frustrating for the family. They were also frustrated that a press conference has never been held. When asked about press conferences, the detectives confirmed There never was one.
Knietz: No press conference, but whenever Paula originally went missing, the family was very proactive and they went to the media themselves.
That's where really things started to take off in terms of deepening our investigation.
Bobby: They did do like be on the lookout fliers. They handed them all over the airport grounds, keeping it here locally, because obviously Paula was last seen on airport grounds.
Jacqui: Paula's sisters have spent years piecing together their own theories.Each possibility is painful.
Sister: So many unanswered questions to Paula's disappearance. What happened to my sister? Did she become homeless and confused? Don't know who she is. Evicting of human trafficking, or maybe she's still alive and refused to be found, but I don't believe so. Knowing Paula, our family is very important to her. She will find a way to contact us.
Jacqui: Many different theories became possible
Sister: And there's a possibility of harm, kidnapping, homicide, or fatal accident. There's a possibility of voluntary disappearance.
Jacqui: Still others think the simplest explanation may be the most likely.
Sister: My theory was knowing she hates waiting for the arrival of her ticket back to Florida. She got tired and confused, so she decided to walk.
Jacqui: Six years later, Paula's family is still waiting on answers from investigators.
Sister: I'm not fully satisfied because I wonder. Why there was no media coverage from the DFW Airport Police Department about the missing person. It happened in their airport. It's their case. I watch the news and if there's a missing person, there is the police department with the investigators and the family asking the public for help, but it did not happen. To Paula and to our family. I wonder why, why they missed that media coverage. It's a very important coverage. The first few weeks that Paula was missing, it did not happen.
Jacqui: The family said, they asked the police if they could provide DNA samples. They were disheartened that they had to approach the police with the idea instead of the other way around. For Paula's sisters, these unanswered questions and the perceived lack of urgency remains painful,
Sister: according to Sergeant Carl Rose that, uh, he sympathized with the family. But those are just words. How about the actions? So many unanswered questions to Paula's disappearance. What happened to my sister?
Jacqui: It's had a profound psychological and emotional impact,
Sister: Thinking that she was physically absent, but psychologically present prevents our family from achieving closure and healing as a family.
We continuously praying for our Lord God, for help and guidance to bring Paula home. Whatever happened to her. Whether she's still alive or no longer with us, we like to bring Paula home to us. If someone knows something, somebody knows something, even though it's just a slightest clue of what happened, that somebody is very important to us.
So we need help. We need. Any information, even as slightest information will be greatly appreciated. It's been six years since Paula's disappearance, and until now we have no clue of what happened to her.
Jacqui: For six years, the Delmondo family has carried Paula in their hearts without answers, without closure, but never without love.
Paula Delmondo was last seen at 3:52 AM on September 15th, 2019, near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport at South Airfield Drive and South 20th Avenue in Eli, Texas. She's wearing a white shirt and lavender pants. Paula is a 65-year-old transgender woman, a US citizen from the Philippines living in Tampa, Florida.She never aborted her flight to Cozumel. If you have any information about Paula's disappearance or her, well, if you have any information about Paula's disappearance or her whereabouts, please call 2 1 4 4 8 9 7 8 6 7. Share what you know, no matter how small it may seem. Because Paula deserves to be remembered and her family deserves answers.
This is, they were here.
This podcast was created by me, Jacqui Fulton. Fact-checking by Fendall Fulton. Original music by Aaron Levison.