Their faces have been shown across the news and missing person signs and posters across town as their families have remained relentless in the search for answers as to what happened to their children.
Zoe Campos
On Thursday, November 17, it will have been three years since Zoe Campos’ family saw her last. Her mother, Melinda, says that with each day and family gathering, the pain of having lost her daughter never gets any easier.
Zoe was last seen November 17, 2013 as she was headed to go pick her mother up from work, however, she never made it. According to her detective, the last communication between her and family was the next day, November 18, but they have not heard from her since.
“Knowing I haven’t seen her or heard her voice in three years, or even just the fact that I don’t even feel any closer to getting answers to getting her home,” said Campos. “All the time, I’m always dreaming about her, dreaming about things we used to talk about things we did.”
Campos’ family took to city streets and county roads as they searched for Zoe, it was then when her aunt, Monica Rivas, says she spotted something familiar: a man driving Zoe’s car.
“I was anxious. I knew somebody was driving it. It wasn’t her, because it was a male. I knew that for a fact.”
Rivas followed the car until it reached the Driftwood Apartments. She was unable to locate the car, and by the time law enforcement arrived to the scene, it had already been abandoned.
Detective Adam Freeman took over Zoe’s case about a year and a half ago. He acknowledges at that the time of her disappearance that LPD should have made a quicker, more thorough response to the apartment complex.
“It probably wasn’t hit as hard as it could have been,” said Detective Freeman, who explains that while no concrete leads have come up in Zoe’s investigation, that it is far from a cold case. “This is nowhere near a cold case. A cold case means you’ve hit all dead ends, nothing’s coming in. I get constant leads everyday. Some leads are just hearsay that turn out to be not correct, but there are leads everyday that come in.”
Campos says despite not being able to get answers, she’s appreciative of the community support and involvement that she and her family have experienced over the past few years at vigils and benefits.
Maegan Hembree
When Maegan Hembree’s mother saw her last, she said she was heading from their family home in Smyer to a friend’s house, but she never made there.
“When it happens to you, you just don’t realize…It’s unreal,” said Robbie Hembree, her mother. “‘Thought I might hear from her in a little bit, you know leaving her messages, then about mid-day. I checked the hospitals, jails, anything you could think of.”
According to witnesses however, she was last seen with a man by the name of Michael Todd Ramsey. He was taken into for questioning, but no charges have ever been filed in Hembree’s case. Ramsey does remain behind bars though in Vandzant County on unrelated charges.
“He’s [Ramsey] going to answer for this, and we are going to get justice someday.”
As the fourth year since her disappearance nears, Maegan’s mother recalls what the last few have been like. Vigils and various searchers to help bring this daughter home to her parents, and a mother back to her son.
Jeffrey Hargrove
33-year-old Jeffrey Hargrove was only one semester away from finishing up his bachelor’s degree at Texas Tech. His family says he was doing well in school, and that he communicated frequently with them, so when they never heard back from him after the Texas Tech vs. Texas football game on November 5.
“When I sleep and when I go to get up and think ‘was that a dream or a nightmare,” and then you get up and think no, no this is happening.”
Hargrove was staying at the Overton Hotel, but never checked out of his hotel, leaving behind his phone, wallet and key behind. Hargrove’s family flew in Florida and has been here since, searching desperately in a town unfamiliar to them and asking for the Lubbock community’s help in doing so.
“Spread the word, he’s out there somewhere, he could be out there not knowing maybe where he is. And if anybody just just… Keep looking for him.”
