It has been exactly one year since Erika and Tom Pillsbury lost their daughter, 22-year-old Mercedes Vega. “Coming up on this year is gut-wrenching,” Erika said.
As Mercedes’ parents navigate impossible grief, Erika told Dateline that she doesn’t choose to remember Mercedes as the person she was — but “as she still is.”
“She’s still articulate, and funny — and her energy is still here. She’s kind of a little bit of a prankster. Her silly laugh that would just make everybody laugh harder,” she said. “That’s still who she is. She’s not here — I can’t hear her laugh, I can’t touch her, I can’t smell her, I can’t hug her, and I didn’t even get to see her after she died. And I don’t have that physical [part], but Mercedes left an impact.”
Tom agrees. He described Mercedes, whom he met when she was 6 years old, as Erika’s protector. “The very first time I met her, so, I went up to Erika’s house and I said to [Mercedes], I said, ‘If you don’t want me here, you just tell me to leave.’ She just looked right at me and said, ‘You need to leave,’” he recalled, laughing. “Just this little -- tiny little thing — ‘You need to leave.’”
Eventually, Mercedes came around, and Tom said they became very close over the years. Shortly before he and Erika got married in 2010, Mercedes wrote him a card for Father’s Day, which he remembers vividly. “‘I love that you’re marrying my mom,’” it read.
“Mercedes made me the person I am. Because of being a blended family and not having our children all the time, I had Mercedes a lot,” he told Dateline. “She made me the father that I am today.”
Mercedes’ parents love her passionately — the same way they said Mercedes loved others when she was alive. “She’s like, right in your face — loving you, loving you, loving you, loving you. You always knew when she was around, and she was always so true to herself and she encouraged so many people to be who they were wholly, fully, without excuse,” Erika told Dateline. “So, if we can all do that for each other, that would be the best way to remember Mercedes.”
Erika and Tom remember the last time they spoke to Mercedes. They were on the last day of a vacation in the Caribbean, talking to their daughter on the phone. “We were having a blast,” Erika said, recalling the boat they were sailing on across the ocean. “And I said, ‘It’s so bougie. It just reminds me so much of you.’ And she said, ‘FaceTime me.’ And I tried, and I couldn’t get through.”
Erika and Tom flew back to their home in San Tan Valley, Arizona the next day — April 17th, 2023.
Around 7 o’clock that night, they heard a knock on the door.
It was the police. They asked if Mercedes lived there.
“And I think I just kept repeating, ‘Is she OK? Is she OK?’” Erika recalled. “And, finally, they said, ‘No. She’s deceased.’”
Tom recalled the heartbreaking scene that followed. “I lost it,” he said. Erika described it, too. “I remember hearing screaming,” she said. “I remember feeling like my soul was being ripped out of my body. I said, ‘What happened?’”
One year later, Mercedes’ family still does not have the answer to that question. “The world’s at a loss without her,” Erika told Dateline. “She should be here.”
The Murder of Mercedes Vega
On April 16, 2023, Mercedes is seen on security footage leaving her apartment complex in Tempe, Arizona at around 9:15 p.m.
“When she’s walking out of that elevator vestibule, and she’s looking down at her phone, I think she was on FaceTime,” Erika told Dateline, but added that they don’t know that for a fact.
Erika also said that they don’t know for sure where Mercedes was headed, but gathered from her text messages and friends that, “she was either going to go meet some friends for sushi, or go to Dave & Buster’s.” Erika thought Mercedes also may have been going to work. “She even says in one of her text messages, ‘I just feel weird, like maybe I shouldn’t go anywhere,’” Erika said.
In an email, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Sergeant Joaquin Enriquez told Dateline that, through numerous interviews, the department concluded that Mercedes had “canceled personal plans” shortly before her disappearance. “The last known communication from Ms. Vega was on the night before she was found deceased, in which she stated she planned to go to her place of employment, which was about a mile from her residence,” he wrote.
Mercedes worked as a dancer in a club part time. Tom told Dateline that, shortly before she died, Mercedes told him that she had plans to quit dancing.
She had goals and aspirations she took very seriously, according to her family, which included becoming a personal trainer and opening her own gym.
In the minutes after she was seen on that security footage in her apartment complex, Mercedes would disappear.
It’s unclear exactly what transpired, but early the next morning, multiple agencies responded to a scene on the side of a highway.
Sergeant Enriquez spoke with Mercedes’ case agent and shared information with Dateline from that conversation. He was not able to share too many details, but confirmed the case is still “very much active and proceeding.”
Enriquez told Dateline that in the early morning hours of April 17, 2023, the Harquahala Fire Department responded to a report of a burning car on the “north hand shoulder” of the I-10 highway, west of Tonopah, Arizona. The Arizona Department of Public Safety also responded to the scene, arriving at 1:06 a.m.
When firefighters arrived at the scene of the burning Malibu, “they extinguished the fire, which revealed a deceased human body in the rear passenger seat,” Sgt. Enriquez said. “Detectives from the MCSO Homicide Unit were summoned and assumed the investigation.”
Authorities identified the woman found inside the car as 22-year-old Mercedes Vega, via fingerprints. The car in which she was found, a 2018 Chevrolet Malibu, did not belong to Mercedes.
Enriquez would not confirm the cause of death but did say Mercedes had “additional injuries other than burns from the fire” and it was ruled a homicide. The sergeant was unable to disclose any details about what else was found inside the car, but noted that there was “burn damage to the interior and exterior of the vehicle.”
Mercedes’ parents shudder at the thought of what may have happened to their daughter inside that car. “The murderers — these people — they’re evil,” Erika told Dateline. “They tortured Mercedes.”
They find some peace, however, in knowing that their daughter stood up for herself in her last moments. “I know she fought. She did,” Erika told Dateline. “I mean, it’s just — I know her. I know she fought.”
Dateline obtained the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s report, which stated that the cause of death was “conflagration, blunt force and ballistic injuries.”
Sergeant Enriquez told Dateline that in order to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation, the MCSO is unable to say whether any persons of interest or suspects have been identified in the case. He confirmed that “numerous items of evidence” were identified by the homicide unit and taken in for examination. He said that Mercedes’ phone was recovered, but would not comment further.
Mercedes’ family believes that multiple people had to have been involved in her murder. Sergeant Enriquez would not comment on whether authorities agree with the family’s assessment.
The family believes that whoever took Mercedes also took her car, a 2019 Dodge Charger.
According to the family, her car was located on Mill Avenue — not far from Mercedes’ apartment complex. “Just left it there, I believe running, in a place where it was going to get towed, or someone would steal it,” Erika said. “It was — it was sloppy. It was — it was erratic.” Police confirmed that Mercedes’ car was found on a roadway in Tempe about a mile away from her residence, but did not say where. They seized the vehicle and “processed it for possible items of evidence.” Sergeant Enriquez confirmed they also discovered video surveillance footage at this location “showing the vehicle arriving and being left until its discovery.” He could not confirm details about who might have been driving the car.
With the few details that have been released, Mercedes’ family said they’ve been left with more questions than answers. “I know she’s dead. That’s all I know,” Erika told Dateline. “There has to be an answer.”
The year following Mercedes’ death — and the search for answers that accompanied it — has caused Erika and Tom insurmountable pain. It has not, however, left them hopeless. “We’ve accepted our daughter’s gone,” Tom told Dateline. “What we haven’t accepted is what was — happened to our daughter.”
Now that Mercedes isn’t here to defend herself, Erika and Tom have made it their mission to do it for her. “It’s just the two of us, and — and we fight for each other, and we fight for her,” Tom said. “One thing she would say to me is, ‘You got my back.’ And I would always tell her, ‘I got your back; I will always have your back.’ And now, I have her back until the day my feet don’t touch this earth.”
The Aftermath
For months, Erika and Tom kept silent about their daughter’s case — holding on to hope that the investigation would be solved in the months that followed. “We were a hundred percent quiet,” Tom said. “We didn’t say a word,” Erika added.
Tom told Dateline that he believes that Mercedes’ part-time job dancing at a club a few nights a week has de-legitimized her case in the eyes of the MCSO. “It feels like my daughter doesn’t matter [to them],” he told Dateline. “That’s what they’ve made me believe.”
Sergeant Enriquez told Dateline that the MCSO Homicide Unit “takes all cases seriously and conducts thorough investigations in a fair and impartial manner, regardless of a victim’s profession.” The family also told Dateline they felt like they had been left out of the loop on information about Mercedes’ case.
Sergeant Enriquez said that detectives have remained in contact with the family but noted that “each case is conducted with the intention of successful prosecution,” which means that “certain information remains confidential, even to members of the family, during ongoing investigations.”
As time passed, Mercedes’ family began to lose hope that law enforcement would put their daughter’s killer behind bars. They refused to believe, however, that there was nothing to be done about it. “And then my wife woke up one day and said, ‘I’m done being quiet,’” Tom told Dateline.
In the fall of 2023, they began working to spread the word about Mercedes. “Her oldest friends that we know have created the web page and have done the flyers,” Tom said.
They created an Instagram account, @honoringmercedesvega, in September and a Facebook page called “Justice for Mercedes Marianna Vega” in October, where loved ones share memories of Mercedes and information about the case. They also planned a candlelight vigil in Mercedes’ honor.
Mercedes’ mom, Erika, decided to take to TikTok, too, to spread the word about the case. She made a video last month — sharing a message for parents with children in Arizona. “I am the mother of Mercedes Vega, and I need the people of the Phoenix area to be aware that my child’s killers are still at large,” she said in the video. “There are people out there preying on your children. They’re watching them, they’re learning their patterns, they’re planning horrible things to do to your child. You need to worry about your children.”
The video has more than 600,000 views. The comment section is filled with people offering their condolences to Mercedes’ family — and women sharing their own experiences of feeling unsafe in Arizona. Erika and Tom believe that sharing their daughter’s story may help keep other women safe. “That’s what our ultimate goal is, is that we don’t want someone to go through what we’re going through,” Tom said.
Family and friends also use the Facebook and Instagram pages to share information about events, like the #SheMatters walk they planned for the first anniversary of Mercedes’ death.
“We’re gathering,” Tom explained, “to show unity.”
The walk began on April 17, 2024, at 4 p.m. (MT) at Margaret T. Hance Park and the route ended at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. In a post on the Facebook group, Erika wrote that the march was to bring awareness not just to Mercedes, but to all the women of Arizona who have not received justice, may have been overlooked, pushed aside, or forgotten.
On April 17, MCSO Sheriff Russ Skinner issued a written statement about Mercedes’ case. “I am shook and outraged by the senseless murder of Mercedes Vega. Our homicide detectives are continually collaborating with local and federal agencies to pursue justice for Mercedes in effort to bring the closure her family and our community deserves,” he wrote. “Communion and the exchange of information among MCSO and partner agencies are crucial in this on-going investigation. Our dedicated detectives are committed to resolving this case, and we recognize the urgent need for justice shared by our community.”
When Mercedes’ family decided to go public with their story, their goal was clear. “By doing what we’re doing, we’re bringing awareness to it,” Tom told Dateline. “We are getting it out to the public.” It’s the same philosophy they applied to the vigils and walks they’ve planned — the more people know, the better.
Ultimately, they hope it will bring them the answer to the question they’ve asked every day for an entire year: What happened to Mercedes?
“Somebody knows– somebody knows something,” Erika said. “Somebody tell me why she’s not here. Tell me.”
While Erika and Tom wait for that answer, the memory of their daughter keeps them warm. “She went with me everywhere. I took her everywhere with me. I never wanted to leave her. I always wanted to have her with me,” Erika told Dateline. “And I’m so glad that I did that.”
Tom shared a story with Dateline about a young, determined Mercedes. “She wrote a PowerPoint presentation before she turned 16 to get her first tattoo,” Tom said. “She just knew a way to get things that she wanted.”
It worked, of course. The tattoo she chose was of a scripture — in her mother’s handwriting — that Erika used to read to her before bed. Psalms 23:4 — Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for Thou art with me.
“It gives me some peace that [that scripture] mattered to her that much,” Erika told Dateline. “That when she was going through what she was going through — and it was, we believe, a few hours of torture — that she hopefully had some sense of safety and peace.” For Mercedes’ parents, however, it’s a small comfort to their anguish. “There is this horrible monster(s) walking around Tempe, Arizona, who have murdered, tortured — took my child,” Erika said. “And by doing that, you took my grandchildren, and you took my memories with her, and you took — you took so much when you took her, from so many people. She mattered so much to so many people.”
Erika and Tom are planning to spread Mercedes’ ashes in Hawaii next month. “That was her wish,” Tom told Dateline. “She was in Hawaii right before this happened, and she told [Erika], ‘When I die, I want my children to spread my ashes in Hawaii.’” Erika finished the sentence. “‘Because that’s where my soul belongs.’”
Mercedes did not get the chance to have children. Erika and Tom know it’s up to them to carry out their daughter’s wish — and do everything they can to make sure Mercedes gets justice. “I want justice for Mercedes,” Erika said. “We won’t rest until there’s justice for Mercedes,” Tom added.
Two rewards are being offered in this case. Silent Witness is offering up to $2,000 for information in the case. The family is also offering a reward but the amount is yet to be determined.
Anyone with information about Mercedes’ murder should call the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office tip line at 602-876-8477 or submit a tip online. You can also submit an anonymous tip at silentwitness.org or by calling 480-WITNESS (948-6377).
If you have a story to share with Dateline, please submit it here.
This article has been updated to include a statement from Maricopa County Sheriff Russ Skinner.