THE UNSOLVED: Where is Ernest Manzanares?

On July 28, 1988, Ernest Joe Manzanares, 23 years old at the time, left his home at 95 Sand Dollar Key in Ocoee in his red/primer gray 1976 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

He never returned, and no one has seen him since. 

Today, he would be 58 years old. Manzanares is the Ocoee Police Department’s oldest missing person.

Although 35 years have passed, the department and the Manzanares family have not given up searching for the missing man. 

THE DISAPPEARANCE 

Ernest Manzanares’ mother, Patricia, reported her son as missing Aug. 31, 1988. Ernest Manzanares was entered into the Florida Crime Information Center and the National Crime Information Center. 

Earlier that year, Ernest Manzanares had come to Florida from Colorado to be with his family — mother, father and siblings — after having some run-ins with the law in Colorado. 

He was last seen wearing a T-shirt and gym shorts. He is described as having dark brown short hair, brown eyes, being clean cut with no facial hair, weighing 170 pounds, and standing 5 feet, 5 inches tall. He wore glasses and had a tattoo of the Grim Reaper on his left arm. His race and ethnicity is described as American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic/Latino,White/Caucasian.

Ernest Manzanares took nothing with him except the keys to the car when he left. The vehicle may have had an unknown Colorado tag attached.

It’s a case that has occupied the mind of Ocoee detective Michelle Grogan since she joined the department in 2003.

“Lt. (Mireya) Iannuzzi and Sgt. (Leonardo) Gomez let me work the missing people cases like I want to work them,” she said. “I don’t take no for an answer. I’m calling you, I’m calling relatives. I just can’t imagine not knowing where your person is.”

When she started working on missing persons cases, Grogan often worried about contacting the families and reopening wounds.

“But, I went to a missing persons conference this summer and the father of a missing child spoke,” she said. “We were able to ask him questions, and he told me, ‘There’s not a day that I don’t wake up thinking about my daughter. There’s not an hour that goes by that I’m not thinking about my daughter, and I go to bed thinking about my daughter. So, you calling, in no way at all are you bringing it up to me. I’m already thinking about her, and it’s kind of comforting to be able to talk about her.’” 

THE CASE

In December 1988, detective Ted Silberstein, the original detective on the case, was able to find Ernest Manzanares’ fingerprints and dental records from Colorado.

In the first five years since Ernest Manzanares’ disappearance, Silberstein received several hits through FCIC and followed through on every one — without success.

On March 9, 2021, Detective David Gray obtained buccal swabs from Ernest Manzanares’ biological daughter, Kristina Cree. They were submitted to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

However, after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, NamUs lost its funding, and the investigation stalled.

About a year later, on June 2, 2022, Grogan was assigned to follow up on cold missing persons cases.

She contacted the Winter Garden dispatch, who stated Ernest Manzanares still was listed as a missing person, and his vehicle was included in the FCIC/NCIC file.

She discovered three to four close hits on the vehicle and contacted the National Automobile Theft Bureau of Atlanta, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, Car Fax, The Division of Insurance Fraud and the National Insurance Crime Bureau. All were met with negative results. 

Grogan then contacted NamUs and was advised that because of COVID and the loss of its funding, NamUs still had been unable to process the buccal swab for Cree but was hoping to gain its funding back soon.

Upon looking through Ernest Manzanares’ paperwork, Grogan said Silberstein had put an old case file from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office into the missing persons case file.

Following Ernest Manzanares’ disappearance, the OCSO discovered a male transient dead on Silver Star Road in Ocoee, about nine miles away from where Ernest Manzanares went missing. The victim was never identified.

Grogan contacted Sheriff’s Office detective Peter Hernandez and inquired if he knew if the bones from the unidentified deceased male still were contained at the Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Grogan then spoke to Roberto Padrino at the medical examiner’s office, who stated they did have the remains from the homicide case. He requested dental X-rays from Ernest Manzanares, but Ocoee no longer had those X-rays. Furthermore, there were no dental X-rays for the OCSO homicide victim.

Grogan researched Ernest Manzanares’ old dentist in Colorado but discovered the dentist had died. However, it did lead her to his relatives who were sold the business. The relatives stated the building had been converted into city offices, and they believed all the records were destroyed.

OCSO bio lab now will attempt to extract a DNA profile from the OCSO homicide victim’s bones and submit the profile to NamUs.

Grogan is awaiting clearance to enter the case into the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program database, run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

FAMILY SUSPICIONS 

Grogan has spoken to Patricia Manzanares multiple times since taking over the case.

“She is still a mother who does not know where her son is,” she said. “She advised that she was in an abusive relationship with Frank, Ernest’s father, and Ernest would always try to defend her by standing up to his father.”

Patricia Manzanares eventually gained the courage to leave Frank, and in 1992, she took her younger children with her back to Colorado.

Patricia Manzanares said Frank and his cousin mentioned they were going to kidnap Ernest’s sister and cousin and sell them into slavery. Patricia Manzanares often wonders if Ernest confronted them on this, and they killed him. 

Both Frank and the cousin are now deceased, and there has been no evidence to support the allegations. 

Grogan believes it is important for officers, detectives and even reporters to talk to family members and other people who knew the victim years later in case any new memories or information is revealed.

In the last year, Grogan has spoken to Patricia Manzanares, who said Ernest broke his arm when he was 12 years old and had to have a cast to repair it. This was information the department did not have, so Grogan was able to add it to NamUs.

From speaking to Ernest Manzanares’ sister, Grogan also discovered the missing vehicle had an etching of the moon and the sun that was visible from the outside and inside on the back rear window. The information could be helpful when searching for the vehicle.

In addition, the sister shared Ernest Manzanares had another tattoo that showcased the letters FCC, but he covered it up with a flower in colored ink.

CASE STILL OPEN

After the pandemic, NamUs was able to get its funding back, and it is now picking cases to do a complete DNA profile to add to CODIS. However, this has not yet happened for Ernest Manzanares.

The Ocoee department is working to obtain a buccal from one of Ernest Manzanares’ two living biological brothers to add to NamUs. 

Grogan said the department still is asking  people to come forward if they have any information.

“A parent should never have to bury their own child,” she said. “It takes my breath away to think about.”

Editor’s note: This is the next in an ongoing series on unsolved crime cases in West Orange.