What Happened to Erica Alonso?
The death of a 27-year-old Laguna Hills woman, whose body was dumped off the Ortega Highway in California, continues to haunt her community three years later.
It was February 14th, 2015 — Valentine’s Day — and the last night that Erica would be seen alive. She and her on-again, off-again boyfriend left for a popular nightclub in Costa Mesa: Sutra Lounge, a modern, sleek club lit by the neon lights behind the bar and crowded with drunk lovebirds pulsating to the beat of trance music.
VIPs were served bottles of champagne at plush lounge tables, while club-goers squeezed into the tiny dance floor to make the most of their Saturday night through drink, dance, and the feeling that nothing in the world could go wrong, that life would absolutely go on forever —
Erica did not have that luxury. By the morning of February 15th, she had vanished. Her abandoned Honda Civic would be found two miles from her home, covered in dust, parking violation tickets, and her purse left inside. Her body would only be found two months later, discarded in the Cleveland National Forest.
I remember seeing her missing poster circulate among my high school friends on Facebook…
