Young Mother, 2 Children Sought After Vanishing

A young San Diego woman and her two children have been missing for more than two weeks, and police are looking for the children’s father in connection with the disappearance, authorities said Thursday.

Marci Jo Berry, 20, walked out of the Linda Vista apartment she shared with another woman May 8 with her two sons and a diaper bag over her shoulder and has not been seen since, said Bill Robinson, a spokesman for the San Diego Police Department. A lack of leads has left the police stumped.

The children’s father, Bonifacio Trujillo, 23, allegedly had beaten and threatened the young woman in the past, and police suspect he may have had something to do with her disappearance.

“We don’t know the reason for the disappearance,” said Detective Don Strey. “He may have spirited her to Mexico to keep control of her, or she may have just had enough of it and decided (to leave). . . . But, at this point, I don’t see a lady in her condition just get up and leave.”

Berry’s mother, Jessi Hoff, said her daughter had enrolled in a high school equivalency program in February and had moved just moved into the Linda Vista apartment with her sons, Jose Luis Trujillo, 3, and Alejandro Trujillo, 21 months.

“She was really getting herself together,” Hoff said. “She was talking about getting her GED (high-school equivalency degree) and learning a trade or going to college. She wanted to be able to support herself and Alex and Jose.”

Hoff, 41, said her daughter and Trujillo met about six years ago but that no one was aware that the man was abusing her until Berry called her from a battered-women’s shelter about three months ago. Berry and Trujillo were not married.

“She was really afraid of him,” Hoff said.

The last trace of Berry and her children was on the day she disappeared, said her grandmother, Ruth Hoff. Berry went to the Wells Fargo Bank in Mission Valley in the 100 block of Camino de la Reina and closed out her checking account about 4 p.m. Hoff said Berry would have had to take a bus from her Linda Vista home to the bank.

“Someone may have seen her pushing a baby carriage,” Ruth Hoff said. “It was gray and real sturdy. She carried the two boys in it.”

Bonifacio Trujillo is wanted on three misdemeanor arrest warrants involving an unrelated burglary and also goes by the name of Miguel Salgado Alonso, Robinson said.

He is a native of a small town near Morelos, Mexico, and San Diego police have been in contact with the Mexican authorities and news media in attempt to locate him, Berry and the children.

Berry is 5-foot-6 and weighs about 150 pounds. She has brown eyes and blond-brown hair. She has a reddish beauty mark beneath the right corner of her mouth. Jose Luis has blond hair, stands about 3 feet tall and weighs about 40 pounds. He has a short haircut, with a tail in the back. Alejandro is about 2 feet tall and weighs about 29 pounds. Hoff said both children understand Spanish and English.