This is the tale of a 17-year-old basketball player who left home to play but never returned.
Since June 14, 2007, Gloria Esparza has been looking for her son Ryan Jacob Esparza. When a friend called him at the age of 17, he was asked to meet up to shoot hoops nearby in Pasadena’s Highland Park. Ryan’s family said that they were aware of a problem as the sun fell and he was still not at home.
“The next morning, my stomach hurt, and I just had this eerie feeling that something had happened,” Esparza recalled.
Gloria called the Pasadena Police Department the following day, June 14, to report Ryan missing. She also got in touch with the old pal who’d asked him over to play basketball.
I begged him to come forward and inform us if he knew anything, she claimed.
She claims a buddy informed her that Ryan received a phone call and left the park, and she contacted FOX 26 about this. She refused to believe it when we asked whether she still did. She answered, “No, not anymore, because nobody else said he was at that park, so I don’t know if he even made it there.”
Texas Equusearch searched a 5-mile radius around the park but came up empty-handed. His mother eventually began learning rumors through the grapevine as the months went by.
“I have heard rumors. He and another companion allegedly stole cocaine from one of the buddies. which kind of drugs? Cannabis,” she said.
She replied that the marijuana was taken from a different childhood buddy and wasn’t thought to be a significant quantity when asked what kind of drugs it was. She further claims that no clues were ever found throughout the police inquiry into those stories and Ryan’s disappearance.
All I want to do is bring him home. I’m aware that he isn’t alive today, Esparza stated.
Ryan did, however, leave his girlfriend carrying their child behind, which made his mother happy and gave her the motivation to keep going.
When Ryan vanished, “She was six months pregnant, and I honestly had no idea,” claimed Esparza.
I thank God every day that we have little Ryan, and I can’t wait to see him as a grown man,” she concluded. Because I missed watching my son become a man,” she said.
When Ryan was just 7 years old, Esparza remembers attempting to explain to him why his father wasn’t present.
She recalls telling Ryan, “We’re hunting for your dad, we’re going to bring him home.
Ryan Jr. is 16 years old and doesn’t remember his father. His family still has no idea what happened to him, and now their only hope is that someone who knows something will come forward.
“God knows what I want and what’s in my heart. He’s going to make someone’s heart soft so they’ll tell me where he is so I can bring him home. “My husband says that when he goes, he’s going to make a marker for Ryan next to him, because Ryan did exist and because we’ve never actually done a memorial,” she said.
Call the Pasadena police at (713) 477-1221 or Crime Stoppers at (713) 521-4600 if you know anything about what happened to Ryan Esparza.
