Stacy Ann Aragon was a 28-year-old mother from Arizona. In March of 2005, her oldest of three sons was ki*lled by a drunk driver causing Stacy to spiral into a depression. She lost 75 to 100 pounds and spent several hours a day at her son’s grave. The bereaved mother was also going through a divorce and a custody battle.
According to Stacy’s sister-in-law Nikki Askren, “she ended up starting to get mixed in with the wrong kind of people, wrong crowd, doing the wrong things.”
Her family says she didn’t have a permanent home and often hung out with c*riminals and drug addicts. Stacy had two warrants out for her arrest — she didn’t show up in court on charges of drug possession and endangering the life or health of a child.
Her boyfriend, Steven B Bishop, was physically abusive. Released from prison in 2004, he had served five years for aggravated assault. Steven also had warrants. He had failed to meet with his parole officer and didn’t appear in court for sentencing on a domestic violence charge to which he had pled guilty.
Sometime after 2 PM on July 17, 2005, Stacy and Steven left her aunt’s house in Gilbert, Arizona. They withdrew money from an ATM and went to a local dollar store. They were never heard from again.
Three days later, Stacy was reported missing to the authorities. Steven’s family never filed a report.
A few months later, hikers found Stacy’s 1986 Subaru station wagon on the side of a hill in a remote desert near Lake Pleasant, Arizona. Her purse and phone were inside the car, along with memorabilia from her son’s funeral. Bones were found near the vehicle, but experts say they belong to an animal.
Stacy also owned a green pickup truck which remains missing.
The grieving mother was undoubtedly going through a rough time, but her family does not believe she would leave behind her sons, who were 8 and 3 at the time.
Regardless, she did make some worrisome statements shortly before vanishing. According to her sister Lisa Askren, Stacy spoke about “not wanting to be here anymore.” She had also told her stepmother she couldn’t care for her sons anymore and needed to leave.
Although a cr*iminal and abusive toward Stacy, her family does not believe he is the reason she disappeared. They agree Stacy was likely murd*ered, but part of them hopes she is still out there. Nikki explained the anguish of not knowing,
“You go back and forth. One minute you think, ‘There’s no way she’s alive because she would have come home,’ and then you hear about those girls who have been held for 13 years and get hope that she’ll get away and come home. The unknown is tormenting.”
Interestingly, an ex-boyfriend of Stacy’s told authorities he had been with her in August 2006, a year after she went missing. His claims have not been verified, but he says he told Stacy to contact authorities. He later told police she had been on a hit list and was k*illed.
Stacy’s family is desperate for closure, but Lisa says they aren’t focused on the perpetrators. They just want to bury her next to her son.
“We don’t really care too much about justice, it’s more about finding her remains and putting her with her son. If someone has a conscience and sees how much she’s loved and has a family and kids that are still looking for her, maybe someone who knows something will break.
It can be anonymous, it doesn’t even matter, just that we find her and have some type of closure.”
Stacy Ann Aragon has been missing for 17 years. If alive, she is now 45 years old.
