As Aaron Hernandez’s murder case gripped greater Boston, a nurse quietly vanished. Her family is still seeking answers

The first clue something was wrong came when Jennifer Mbugua’s gray Toyota Camry turned up overnight behind a Shell station in a Boston suburb. Its engine was off and its doors were shut. Her car keys and one sandal were beside a nearby Dumpster.

It was early morning on May 28, 2014. A gas station attendant called police after noticing the empty car parked crookedly at the entrance of the station’s car wash in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. Investigators believe it was left there between midnight and 3 a.m., adding to the mystery.

The gas station was roughly 30 miles from Mbugua’s apartment in Fall River, Massachusetts. By the time anyone noticed the abandoned car, the 31-year-old nurse had vanished.

Her sister, Lisa Mbugua, learned she was missing when North Attleboro police called that spring morning to ask whether she knew Jennifer’s whereabouts.

“It didn’t make sense because she lived in Fall River,” she says now. “I was so confused … why is her car in North Attleboro?”

Her disappearance made headlines in a few small media outlets but went largely unnoticed.

At the time, much of the Boston area – and the nation – was captivated by a more sensational case: murder charges against star NFL player Aaron Hernandez. The Connecticut native, who had caught a touchdown pass for the New England Patriots two years earlier in the Super Bowl, was in jail on charges of gunning down a friend in North Attleboro, where Hernandez owned a sprawling mansion.

The day Jennifer’s car was discovered, Hernandez pleaded not guilty to additional murder charges in the killing of two men in Boston. Images of the shackled, tattooed tight end dominated news coverage across New England.

Jennifer’s family has long wondered whether that media frenzy drowned out their search for answers.

“Everything was about Aaron Hernandez at the time. His case seemed like a priority for the police, the prosecutors, everyone,” Lisa Mbugua says. “With everyone’s focus on Hernandez, was something missed?”

The Massachusetts State Police, which investigated the Mbugua and Hernandez cases, declined to comment on the agency’s relative efforts. A spokesperson for North Attleboro police referred all questions to other law enforcement agencies.

A dozen years later, Jennifer Mbugua still hasn’t been found. Her sister has revisited the details of her disappearance and considered every possibility, every conversation, every missed clue. She never imagined her family would still be searching all this time later.

“We all thought, ‘OK, tomorrow we’ll find her and this will all be over,’” she says. “Sometimes it feels surreal that she’s still missing.”

Jennifer kept much of her life private, her sister says, making it harder to piece together her final days.

Only after she disappeared did her family start to get new glimpses into her life.

She left a gym card, a wallet and lots of questions

Jennifer Mbugua’s disappearance follows a pattern in missing-person cases across the United States. Some start with an initial burst of attention, followed by years of uncertainty as leads dry up and interest fades.

More than 26,350 missing persons’ cases remain open nationwide, including over 220 in Massachusetts, according to the Department of Justice. A disproportionate number of missing people in the US are Black — about 40%, according to federal statistics, even though they make up only about 14% of the population.

Some disappearances dominate headlines. Most, like Mbugua’s, unfold mostly in the shadows.

Her last confirmed sighting was in her apartment building parking lot, where a neighbor reported seeing her sorting through papers in her car two days before it was found, her sister says.

Inside the abandoned Camry, police found Mbugua’s wallet, a gym membership card and storage facility paperwork. They contacted Lisa Mbugua, hoping she could explain why her sister’s car was in North Attleboro, about a 45-minute drive from her apartment.

But no one knew the reason. Her family hadn’t spoken with her for several weeks, Lisa Mbugua says.

Five days before her car was discovered, Jennifer appeared on surveillance video at a Fall River library, where she checked out several items, the incident report says. Police have not revealed what she borrowed

Then two years ago came another surprise: A man contacted the family and said he’d gone on a few dates with Jennifer shortly before she went missing, Lisa Mbugua says. The family notified investigators about it, she says.

Crowley declined to comment on the man. Meanwhile, each new detail about Mbugua’s final weeks has left her family with more questions.

Lisa Mbugua says she sometimes thinks about Amanda Berry, an abductee who escaped in 2013 from a Cleveland house where she’d been held captive for a decade. With no evidence of blood in Jennifer’s car or apartment, she wonders if her sister met a similar fate.

“As long as there’s no closure, it means there’s a possibility she’s out there,” she says. “As long as there are no identifiable remains, until we’re told otherwise, there’s hope that she could be alive.

Christmas ornaments help keep her sister’s memory alive
Jennifer attended church regularly. She loved contemporary gospel music and rarely went anywhere without her headphones. Christmas was her favorite time of the year.

She was always the first in her family to decorate during the holiday season, her sister says. Her tree glowed with red and green nutcracker figurines tucked throughout the branches. At the top, she often placed a tiny Santa in a golden sleigh.

Each holiday season, Lisa Mbugua and her two children decorate their Christmas tree with her sister’s ornaments.

She tells her kids about the aunt who vanished when they were toddlers. It’s her way of keeping her sister’s spirit alive.

Their mother, who lives in Kenya, declined to speak with CNN. But at the start of every year, Lisa says, her mother calls with the same message about Jennifer, the third of her six daughters.

“This is the year she’s coming back,” she tells her. “I know it. I feel it.”