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When 20-year-old Madeline Pantoja disappeared from her Midland, Texas apartment in May 2023, she left everything behind. Her personal belongings were inside, but even more alarming, she’d left her beloved dog without food or water. For those who knew Madeline, that was something she would have never done under any circumstance.
Madeline had made plans to meet up with a friend for an evening swim at her apartment complex, but when that friend showed up, Madeline was nowhere to be found.
As the days passed, her family desperately prayed for her safe return, but regardless of the searches for her as well as their ongoing phone calls, there was absolutely no sign of Madeline.
For nine agonizing days, they waited to find out what happened to her, but through it all, they were convinced they knew exactly who was responsible for whatever happened to her.
According to her obituary, Madeline Pantoja was born on May 25, 2002 to parents Guadalupe Molina & Roberto Pantoja. She had two older brothers, Christian & Roberto Jr. & the family lived in Midland, Texas in the western portion of the state roughly halfway between Fort Worth & El Paso.
After graduating from Midland High School in 2020, Madeline had the goal of becoming a cosmetologist since she loved doing makeup & nails. She also hoped to one day become a wife, a mother & an aunt to her older brothers’ future children. In the meantime, she was working as a bartender at a local restaurant.
According to those who loved Madeline, she was an exceptionally kind-hearted young woman who was creative, outgoing & enjoyed making art.
On Thursday night, May 11, 2023, Madeline’s brother contacted the Midland Police Department (MPD) at 11:02 pm to request a welfare check for his 20-year-old sister. When Officer Leah Leible responded to Madeline’s home at the Palladium Museum Place Apartments eleven minutes later at 11:13 pm, she was met with Madeline’s concerned brother as well as her two friends.
Concern began hours earlier when Madeline’s close friend, Jasmine Hernandez, came by at 6 pm to go swimming at Madeline’s apartment complex’s pool. This was based on plans they had made the previous night. When Jasmine initially arrived, she sat in her car in the parking lot, calling Madeline to let her know that she was there, but she wasn’t answering any of her calls.
Since they shared their locations with one another, Jasmine could see that Madeline’s phone was in her apartment. When she knocked on her door in unit 5309, there was no answer, so she continued to call her several more times with no answer.
Although the door was locked, Jasmine was able to push on it, which allowed her to see that a light was on inside through the crack.
She headed back to her car & decided to go out to pick up dinner, hoping that when she came back, Madeline would be there. While she waited in line for her food, Jasmine had a sinking feeling in her gut that something was really wrong since she knew Madeline to be a very reliable friend who was unlikely to flake on their plans without letting her know.
Before she headed back to the complex, Jasmine called one of Madeline’s best friends to let her know what was going on & after she picked her up, they got back to her complex at 8 pm. Although she still wasn’t answering the door, Jasmine could now see through the crack in the door that the light that was previously on inside, was now off.
Feeling increasingly concerned, Jasmine decided to call Madeline’s older brother, Roberto Jr., who is often referred to as Robert.
When Robert last spoke with his sister the night before, she had been upset since she was fighting with her recent ex-boyfriend, 24-year-old Mario Chacon. Now learning that her friends weren’t able to find her, Robert called Mario at 9:25 pm to see if he knew where Madeline was.
He immediately noticed that Mario was acting really evasive & seemed entirely unconcerned that Madeline seemed to be missing. He told Robert that he’d been with his dad all day & that his family could verify this. Robert found it odd that Mario continued to repeat that he was at his house & not at Madeline’s apartment. At 9:26 pm, he even sent his location to prove where he was at the time.
Robert drove over to his sister’s apartment sometime between 10-10:30 pm that night to meet up with Jasmine as well as Madeline’s other friend who wasn’t named. When they had started calling Mario at 9:20 pm, it seemed as if he was declining their calls. When he called them back three minutes later at 9:23 pm, he told them that he had witnesses for the day, that he’d been at his house all day & since he was taking his anger medication, he was unable to drive.
Before contacting the police, the three were able to reach an apartment complex maintenance worker who briefly let them inside Madeline’s apartment to check for sure that she wasn’t there. While her car was parked out in the lot, her cell phone was wedged between the cushions of the couch, her purse & keys were inside & even more concerning, her beloved dog was left with no food or water. Based on the fact that the puppy pads were full of dog waste, Madeline had been gone for some time.
This was especially concerning since she rarely ever left her dog alone for more than two hours at a time. They also found it extremely odd when they noticed that her black coffee table was missing.
After Officer Leible & additional officers contacted a maintenance worker who unlocked the door, they not only wanted to confirm that Madeline wasn’t there, but to also see if anything suspicious could be found inside.
Since they didn’t have a search warrant & were only doing a welfare check, they didn’t do a detailed search of the apartment, but they did notice a mop soaking in a bucket of dirty water that was next to the front door. The floor was extremely sticky as if someone had used far too much cleaning fluid when mopping.
Robert explained that he’d gotten a call from his sister’s ex, Mario Chacon, the night before at 8:30 pm. Madeline had only recently broken up with him & since he & Madeline were arguing, he wanted Robert to call his sister on a three-way call since she wasn’t answering his calls. Robert told him no because he didn’t want to get involved in their relationship issues.
When Robert called his sister five minutes later at 8:35 pm, she sounded upset about the argument. He reiterated that he didn’t want to get involved, so their conversation quickly ended. He sent her a text two minutes later at 8:37 pm, telling Madeline that he was sorry if she thought that he was taking Mario’s side in things, but he would see her on Saturday for their brother Christian’s graduation. She never responded to his text.
According to her other brother, Christian, when he was texting with Madeline about his upcoming graduation from Texas Tech University that was scheduled on Saturday, May 13, she sounded happy. They were both saying how excited they were to celebrate together in just a few short days.
About an hour after Madeline spoke with Robert on Wednesday night, she texted Jasmine to confirm their plans to meet the following day so they could go swimming together at her complex’s pool. Although this was the last time anyone in Madeline’s circle heard from her, the last reported sighting of her was at 11 pm on Wednesday night.
Robert & Madeline’s two friends told the officers that although Mario & Madeline no longer lived together, he would still occasionally spend the night. They also knew for certain that he had a key to her apartment since one of them had seen Mario unlock the door & come inside with his keys.
When the officers spoke with a neighbor who lived in the unit beneath Madeline’s, she told them that she’d woken up the night before at about 1:30 am to the sound of loud yelling coming from Madeline’s apartment. She could hear the voices of a man & a woman yelling back & forth.
When Officer Leible asked if she heard anyone screaming as if they were scared, the neighbor indicated that she heard the female scream, but not the male. She went on to say that she quickly fell back asleep since she was accustomed to hearing yelling coming from that apartment so she had learned to tune it out.
The neighbor hadn’t seen either Madeline or Mario on Thursday.
When officers contacted Mario at 12:05 am, now on Friday morning, May 12, 2023, he claimed that he hadn’t seen Madeline since Tuesday, May 9. Although he had last spoken with her on his cell phone on Wednesday, May 10, he claimed that he’d been home all that night.
On Friday May 12 at 10:50 am, the Midland Police Department received another call for a welfare check at Madeline’s apartment, this time, from an unnamed caller. Some sources indicate that the caller was Madeline’s neighbor, who indicated that they had heard a female’s voice coming from inside Madeline’s apartment that morning, but no one was answering her door.
When officers responded, no one answered the door, but because they were aware of the missing person report that was taken the night before, officers made entry into Madeline’s apartment. Unlike during the previous night, these officers went beyond the common area of the unit.
During this secondary, more detailed walk through, in addition to seeing the mop & bucket that was still filled with dirty water near the front door, they also saw a Swiffer-style mop on the floor near the door that led to the bedroom.
There was a hole in the bathroom door as well as in the door that led to the bedroom that appeared to have hair attached to the damaged wood. The bed comforter was missing & a dark red stain was on the bed sheet, but Madeline was not there.
It’s likely that her neighbor contacted police that morning after hearing a TV or voices from an adjacent apartment, believing them to be coming from inside Madeline’s.
By this point in time, officers believed that foul play had occurred inside her apartment. Not only was Madeline missing while all of her things had been left behind, including her dog, but now they were seeing concerning evidence inside her apartment, paired with the neighbor’s reports of hearing a female scream on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. She had also been actively arguing with her ex-boyfriend.
In the aftermath of Madeline’s disappearance, her loved ones voiced their frustration, feeling as if they weren’t being heard by law enforcement. As a result, one week after she went missing, a group of about 100 people gathered outside the MPD on Thursday, May 18, 2023 with candles & signs, calling for justice in what they referred to as a silent protest.
The protest stemmed from their anger that Mario Chacon had yet to be named by investigators or even identified as a person of interest in Madeline’s disappearance. This is despite the fact that her apartment door had been locked while her keys were found inside & he was the only other person who had keys to her apartment.
Not to mention that officers were aware that neighbors had heard a man & a woman fighting both inside & outside her apartment on the night she went missing. She & Mario had only just broken up weeks before she disappeared which made her family believe that he was the person responsible for whatever happened to Madeline.
According to Jasmine, the security cameras at the complex were not working & the few cameras that were functioning were live feed only & did not record anyone entering or exiting the complex. Because of this, no one could say for certain if Madeline had left on foot or by car. They also didn’t know if she left with anyone or what she had been wearing.
In response to these frustrations, Mayor Lori Blong & Chief of Police, Seth Herman, held a news conference to update the community on the investigation. They expressed that they were working tirelessly to find Madeline, but because the investigation was ongoing & active, there was some information that could not be shared.
Chief Herman did say that the MPD, along with teams from the Midland County Sheriff’s Office, Texas Rangers, the FBI & the Department of Homeland Security had been working around the clock since Madeline was reported missing.
60 square miles of remote property was searched using drones, manned aircraft, as well as other technologies. They had executed more than 12 search warrants for both physical property & technology, they interviewed more than 25 people & followed up on over 20 tips.
When Mario Chacon was first interviewed at the police station at 5:45 pm on Friday, May 12, he was told that he was not under arrest & he was free to leave at any time. He told officers that when they spoke the night before during Madeline’s welfare check, he’d forgotten to mention that he hadn’t actually been home all night on Wednesday as he’d told them.
Instead, he’d gone out for drinks with his cousin that night who just so happened to live in the same apartment complex as Madeline. He picked him up & dropped him off in his pickup truck, but he knew for certain that he was home at 11:06 pm since his cousin called him at that time.
He confirmed that not only had he been the only person to have driven his 2012 Ford F-250 during the month of May, but after he got home that night, he didn’t go anywhere else in his truck.
However, according to security cameras, a pickup truck with two different colored rims that matched the description of Mario’s truck was seen near an oil company off of Montgomery near Madeline’s apartment complex at 1:59 am on Thursday morning. This was about 11 hours before her brother called for the welfare check & about twenty minutes after her neighbor woke to the sound of arguing as well as a woman’s scream.
An hour-and-a-half later, a Flock camera showed the license plate from Mario’s truck in the area of South County Road at 3:22 am. As the investigation continued, traffic cameras, cell phone data & nearby business cameras all showed Mario’s truck driving from his house to Madeline’s apartment complex & later, back to his house between 12:26 am to 3:37 am.
When Mario was interviewed at the police station for a second time on May 18 & confronted with the lies from his timeline, he ended the interview & refused to take a polygraph.
On Sunday, May 20, after investigators obtained Mario’s phone records from AT&T as a result of a search warrant that was obtained a week earlier on May 13, a Texas Ranger mapped the geo-location records pertaining to the phone number for the dates between Wednesday, May 10, 2023 & Friday, May 12, 2023.
This determined that his cell phone had been within a one-mile radius around East County Road 190 & South County Road 1138. When this area was searched that same day, investigators came upon a body in a field south of Midland. Based on the jewelry she wore, they determined that the remains belonged to Madeline. A source close to the investigation indicated that her body had been found inside the black coffee table that was missing from her apartment.
Her remains were sent to the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s office for positive identification as well as for an autopsy. This determined that Madeline had died from a combination of strangulation as well as suffocation during an attack that involved her being beaten with hands as well as an object in the moments leading up to her death.
Mario Chacon was arrested at 3:30 pm that day & two months later on July 19, 2023, he was formally indicted on a first-degree murder charge for Madeline’s death. Nearly 2 ½ years later, he was re-indicted when prosecutors added the second-degree felony charge of tampering with a human corpse.
According to the grand jury indictment, on or about Thursday, May 11, 2023, Mario Chacon kicked Madeline with his foot, he struck her with his hands, as well as an instrument. He strangled her using both his hands as well as an instrument while also smothering her with an unknown object.
Since his arrest, he remained in the Midland County Jail on a $3 million bond.
Six days after Madeline’s body was found, a memorial was held on May 25, 2023, on what would have been her 21st birthday. Family, friends & members of the community gathered to honor her life while baby pink balloons were released since it was a color that she loved. She was laid to rest the following day.
According to her cousin, Madeline was always there for anyone who needed the extra support. She was someone who wore an endless smile on her face & she wasn’t able to be serious for more than five minutes before she was back to making everyone in the room laugh.
On February 20, 2026, nearly three years after Madeline was murdered, 27-year-old Mario Chacon Jr. pleaded guilty to first-degree murder after he was offered a plea deal for a capped, concurrent prison sentence. His sentencing immediately followed & he was sentenced to 35 years for murder & another 20 years after pleading guilty to tampering with evidence.
According to court officials, the two sentences will be served concurrently & he will be given credit for time served. He must serve half of his sentence (17.5 years) before he’s first eligible for parole in November 2040 when he’ll be 42-years-old.
Had he not taken the plea deal, he faced anywhere between 5 to 99 years, up to life in prison.
Madeline’s loved ones, who were in court, gave emotional impact statements ahead of his sentencing. Her best friend, Jasmine Hernandez, said, I was blessed to have her. Since her voice was viciously silenced, it has left a hole in my heart. She’ll never travel the world, get married.. What you did was inexcusable, unforgivable.
Madeline’s brother called Chacon an evil coward & also accused the justice system of being flawed as he felt he should have spent the rest of his life in prison.
When Madeline disappeared in May 2023, she had been only two weeks away from celebrating her 21st birthday. She had her entire lifetime ahead of her when she was murdered at the hands of someone she once trusted & loved.
After she seemed to vanish without a trace, leaving everything behind in her apartment, including her dog, those close to her knew instantly in their guts that something was terribly wrong. For nine days, her family lived in anguish, not knowing where she was or what had become of her. Although they hoped & prayed that they would get Madeline back safely, based on the evidence left behind in her apartment, they knew in their hearts that something terrible had happened.
Mario Chacon has the potential of being released from prison as early as 2040 when he’s only 42-years-old, while Madeline is gone from this world & her loved ones were given a sentence of grief that will last forever.
References:
- Your Basin: Affidavit reveals new details in death of Madeline Pantoja
- Your Basin: Mario Chacon pleads guilty to murdering Madelin Pantoja, sentenced to 35 years
- Law & Crime: Man hid ex-girlfriend’s corpse in her own coffee table after she broke up with him
- Dignity Memorial: Madeline Pantoja
- News West 9: Madeline Pantoja honored by friends & family on what would have been her 21st birthday
- Concho Valley: Affidavit reveals new details in death of Madeline Pantoja
- The U.S. Sun: Sudden silence
- KTSM: Madeline Pantoja has been missing for 9 days, here is what we know
