Crime & Safety
Gwinnett Dancer Missing After Toddler Found At Shopping Center
Friends and family say they haven't heard from Beatriz Espinoza since Friday morning.
TUCKER GA — Gwinnett County police are searching for a woman who has been missing since Friday, after her 3-year-old son was found wandering alone at a shopping center Saturday morning.
Police say Beatriz Espinoza, 25, hasn't returned phone calls from family since Friday morning and didn't show up to her job, as a dancer at a club on Chamblee-Tucker Road, on Friday night.
Her sister had already contacted police when, at about 11 a.m. Saturday morning, police responded to a report of a child found wandering alone alongside South Norcross-Tucker Road near a shopping center close to Espinoza's home.
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The 3-year-old boy had been found by pedestrians in the area. Shortly afterward, Monica Romero — Espinoza's sister, who had been in the area looking for her — arrived and the toddler ran to her.
Romero told police officers she hadn't seen or heard from her sister in 26 hours. The child was unable to tell adults where his mother was. He was released into Romero's custody.
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Romero told officers her sister had dropped off her oldest son with her to babysit several days prior. Espinoza called her Friday morning to say the younger boy was sick and that she would be along to pick up the older boy shortly.
She never arrived.
At her home, on Sparrows Lane between Norcross and Tucker, police spoke to a roommate who said Espinoza often has male visitors at their apartment, but that she didn't know any of them. She said that, even though the two are roommates, they rarely speak and never socialize together.
Romero told police that Espinoza dances on weekends at a bar called Billares La Vaca on Chamblee Tucker Road.
A waitress there said Espinoza didn't show up on Friday and that she has a boyfriend in his 30s from Mexico. The boyfriend's only police record involved a 2009 arrest for driving without a license, according to a police report.
Anyone with information about Espinoza's whereabouts is asked to contact Gwinnett County Police detectives.
Photo courtesy La Vaca Billares Facebook page
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