Amanda DeGuio was ready to make a change. The 24-year-old had made some mistakes in the past, but she was starting to take steps to turn her life around. She was in recovery and wanted to be a better mother to her two young daughters. She had the unwavering support of her mother and older sister, and her future looked bright. Then, on June 3, 2014, she left her home in Drexel Hill, PA and never returned.
As a child, Amanda had wanted to be a brain surgeon. She was an intelligent girl, but her life got a little off track after she graduated from Haverford High School in 2008. She got pregnant with her first child when she was 19 years old; what should have been a joyful occasion was marred by the fact that Amanda contracted a painful skin infection while she was in the hospital. She had to undergo three surgeries for this, and grew addicted to the prescription pain k*illers she was given afterwards. This marked the beginning of her battle with drug addiction.
Her family wasn’t aware that anything was wrong at first; Amanda was initially able to hide the amount of painki*llers she was taking. She stayed off of the drugs after she got pregnant again two years later, but things went downhill after she gave birth to her second daughter. She and her two daughters were living in Drexel Hill with her mother and older sister, but Amanda began spending more time away from home. Her family realized that she was still taking prescription painki*llers, but Amanda stayed in constant contact with them and they kept hoping things would get better.
By 2014, Amanda had graduated from taking prescription painkil*lers to using heroin, but her family was completely unaware of this. Despite her drug addiction, Amanda stayed in daily contact with her mother and her two daughters. They had no idea Amanda’s life was starting to spiral out of control.
That spring, Amanda’s older sister, Nicole, discovered that Amanda had been advertising herself as an escort on the now-defunct Backpage website. She confronted her sister about it, but Amanda shrugged it off and insisted it was just a joke. Nicole didn’t press her any further at that time, something she would later regret.
By May 2014, Amanda seemed to realize that she wasn’t living the kind of life she wanted. In an effort to finally kick her drug addiction, she began seeing a doctor and obtained a prescription for Suboxone. Commonly prescribed to people recovering from opiate or heroin addictions, Suboxone prevents the person from experiencing the painful withdrawal symptoms they would otherwise face once they stopped taking heroin. It has helped thousands of people overcome their drug addictions, and it appeared that Amanda was going to be another success story.
At the end of May, Amanda’s mother, Joanne, took Nicole, Amanda, and Amanda’s two daughters to Disney World for a week. During the trip, Amanda had been bubbling over with excitement about the future. She told Nicole that she planned to buy herself some new clothes and start going on job interviews; she was unemployed at the time and realized she had no clothing that was appropriate for a business environment. She also mentioned that she was going to see about getting her teeth fixed, as her drug use had taken a toll on her dental health.
Amanda’s positive attitude continued when they returned to Pennsylvania, and her family hoped that she was finally on a permanent road to recovery. Everything seemed normal on the morning of June 3, 2014. Joanne got ready to go to work and dropped Amanda’s two girls off at preschool as usual. When she got home later that day, she expected Amanda to be at the house, but there was no sign of her. She wasn’t too worried at first, though it was unlike Amanda to go anywhere without calling her mother to let her know where she would be. Since Amanda didn’t drive, she relied on others for rides; perhaps she had plans to go out with a friend and had simply forgotten to mention it. All of her clothes and other belongings were still in the house, so it didn’t appear that she planned on being gone for long. Joanne waited up late into the night, but there was still no sign of Amanda and she wasn’t answering her cell phone.
Since Amanda had problems with drugs in the past, Joanne didn’t call the police right away. She knew they would be reluctant to look for someone who was likely missing voluntarily, and she assumed that Amanda would return home in a couple days. As more time passed, however, she started to get the feeling that something bad might have happened to her youngest daughter. Even at the height of her drug addiction, Amanda had been meticulous about calling home each day to speak to her mother and her two daughters. Now, Joanne wasn’t sure what to tell the little girls when they repeatedly asked when their mother would be coming home.
Still reluctant to get the police involved, Joanne and Nicole conducted their own search for Amanda. Using the power of social media, they were able to quickly spread the word that Amanda was missing, and they asked anyone who had seen her to please contact the family. There were several people who reported having contact with Amanda after she had disappeared from her mother’s home, but none of them could pinpoint where she was at the moment.
Joanne and Nicole were absolutely fearless in their search. After getting several reports that Amanda had been seen in Kensington, they combed through the neighborhood’s drug-infested parks and streets looking for any sign of her. They handed out flyers and hung up posters. They tracked down dealers who had sold drugs to Amanda in the past, but none of them had seen her in a while. They wandered the street corners at night, handing out condoms to prostitutes as they asked them for any information about Amanda. Many people recognized her picture, but it seemed like Joanne and Nicole were always one or two steps behind the missing woman.
A woman who knew Amanda reported to Joanne that she had given her a ride to Swarthmore, PA, about five miles away from Drexel Hill. According to this woman, Amanda was living in a second-floor apartment with an older man who she claimed she was working for. For Nicole, this set off alarm bells. She recalled confronting Amanda about the escort advertisement a few months earlier, and how Amanda had said it was nothing. Now, Nicole feared that Amanda might have been forced into the prostitution business by a man who was now holding her against her will. It was a chilling thought.
Joanne and Nicole canvassed the Swarthmore area, but once again they seemed to be a step behind Amanda. A few people seemed to recall seeing her there in the past, but it appeared she had left the area. They covered the area in missing posters and continued with their search.
By August, Amanda’s family was growing desperate and decided it was time to get the police involved. After they reported her missing, they learned that there was an active warrant out for Amanda’s arrest. On June 23, three weeks after she was last seen by her family, Amanda had used a casual acquaintance’s name and identification to get a prescription for Oxycontin from Shadeland Pharmacy in Drexel Hill. She was facing charges of identity theft, theft by deception, narcotics violations, and receiving stolen property.
Joanne and Nicole had mixed emotions when they learned about the pending criminal charges against Amanda. On the one hand, they were devastated at her apparent relapse, but on the other hand they were grateful to learn that the reported sightings of her had most likely been legitimate, and she might still be in the area.
Police were less optimistic. They had learned that Amanda had been involved in prostitution, and they worried that she had become a victim of human trafficking. She was a beautiful young woman, but had a weakness for narcotics. It would be fairly easy for someone with bad intentions to use this to their advantage. Although she had been in recovery when she went missing, if someone had forced drugs on her, it wouldn’t have been long before she was once again addicted, and under the control of the person providing her with drugs.
In the first year of their investigation, police followed up on more than 100 leads in the case, but none of them led to Amanda. Most of the reported sightings of her continued to come from Kensington, but repeated canvasses of the area failed to yield any clues to her whereabouts. Detectives also looked into possible sightings in Bristol and Levittown, but these were dead ends as well.
Although police continued their search for Amanda, and the family hired a private investigator to help chase down leads, the number of tips coming in dwindled and no progress was made on the case. Although there were a few sporadic searches for Amanda, the case appeared to be going cold.
By June 2018, Amanda had been missing for four years. She had missed holidays, birthdays, and a number of other milestones in her daughters’ lives. Although her family tried to remain optimistic, it grew harder as time went by.
Police renewed their search for Amanda in the summer of 2018, and said that they had received some new information at this time, but declined to elaborate. Ominously, they reclassified the case from a missing person search to a criminal investigation. Officials believed that foul play was involved in her disappearance, and they were certain that there were people who knew exactly what had happened to her. They continued tracking down all leads that they received, but also appealed to anyone who had information to please come forward.
Amanda’s family felt a renewed sense of hope in July 2019, when a number of people reported seeing a person they thought was Amanda in Kensington. One person even got close enough to take a picture of the person in question, and it soon made the rounds on social media. Even Amanda’s mother was struck by how much it looked like her daughter; it was starting to look like Amanda may have been found.
A police detective spent hours sitting in his car on Kensington Avenue, hoping to catch a glimpse of Amanda. He could hardly believe his eyes when a woman who appeared to be Amanda could be seen walking down the street towards where he was parked. He jumped out of his car and cautiously made his way over to the woman; as soon as she spotted him walking towards her, she knew what he wanted. Before he could say a word, the woman blurted out that she was not Amanda. Several people had approached her after her picture was circulated on social media, and she had assured each one that she wasn’t who they were looking for. The detective double-checked her identification just to make sure, but up close it was apparent that she wasn’t the missing woman. It was a devastating blow to Amanda’s family.
In June 2022, the Upper Darby Police Department and the FBI held a press conference to announce that they were continuing to search for Amanda. Police Superintendent Timothy Bernhardt stated that law enforcement was there to show their support for Amanda’s family and friends and to let Amanda know that they had not forgotten about her. Bernhardt stated that the investigation into her disappearance was still active and was being advanced as new investigative technologies were developed.
Although police are committed to finding Amanda, they have received few tips about her in recent months. They hope that the renewed publicity about the case will prompt someone to finally come forward with the information they need to reunite Amanda with her family.Police & the FBI continue to search for Amanda (Photo credit: fbi.gov)
Amanda DeGuio was 24 years old when she went missing in 2014. She has blue eyes and brown hair, but had a fondness for wearing wigs so her hair could be any color. At the time of her disappearance she was 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 110 pounds. It is unknown what clothing she was wearing when she went missing, but she would often accessorize with large sunglasses, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings. She has a surgical scar on her middle/upper abdomen. She has a tattoo of lips on her right buttock, “Tommy” under her right breast, the country of Italy with the words “La Vita Bella” above it on her right side, and the letters “SC” on her left ring finger. She might use the names Gianna, Adrianna, or Crystal. If you have any information on Amanda, please contact Upper Darby Police Sgt. Daniel Oliveri at 610–734–7669 or email him at doliveri@udpd.org.
