When a young woman goes missing in the middle of the night, the investigation uncovers more than her family expected. What happened to Marisol Diaz?
Episode Media







Episode Sources
- Woman missing after last being seen in southeast Houston
- Angela Diaz missing: Houston-area family seeks community help in search
- Woman Goes Missing in Southeast Houston
- Missing woman’s last known whereabouts uncertain after family gets conflicting information from 2 men
- Woman missing after last being seen in southeast Houston
- Angela Marisol Diaz, 22, Houston, Texas – Texas EquuSearch Search And Recovery
- Missing in Houston: Search intensifies for Angela Marisol Diaz last seen in SE Houston
- The Missing: Houston woman Angela Diaz’s family pleads for her safe return
- Missing in Houston: 10 cases Texas EquuSearch is investigating
- Family says human trafficking detective is investigating missing Houston woman’s disappearance
- Missing Houston woman may have been sex trafficking victim the night she disappeared, court documents say
- Houston man wanted on charges of trafficking woman who’s now missing
- Family seeks answers as investigation links Angela Diaz’s disappearance to trafficking
- Family pleads for help finding 22-year-old Angela Marisol Diaz
- Sospechoso de la desaparición de joven dominicana recibe cargos de promover prostitución
Episode Transcript
Welcome back to Bite-Sized Crime. This week I’m bringing you a missing persons case from Texas, a case that needs someone to come forward with information. This episode discusses sensitive topics, so listener discretion is advised.
In early July of 2024, the family of Angela Marisol Diaz was on high alert. They hadn’t heard from 22-year-old Marisol in a few days, which was extremely unusual. Marisol was in contact with someone in the family every day, whether on the phone or through text or on social media. But suddenly she wasn’t responding to any of them.
The family compared notes, trying to recall their last conversations with Marisol. Her grandmother had spoken to her on Sunday, June 30th, and so had her older sister Sorangely. The sisters had discussed going on vacation together soon to the Dominican Republic. The conversation was fun and light-hearted, typical sisterly banter, nothing out of the ordinary. Later that night, Sorangely tagged Marisol in a post on Facebook, and Marisol had given it a heart. But after that, radio silence.
As the eldest, Sorangely had always been fiercely protective of Marisol, the bright, bubbly little sister. Growing up in Houston, Texas, Marisol was the joy of their tight-knit family. Sorangely told KPRC, “When I’m with her, I’m always laughing, and whenever there’s a family event or something, I’ll always want her to go. Her energy, her joy is something else.”
Marisol’s family knew she wouldn’t disappear without telling someone, and they were determined to find her. Her boyfriend Krystephor told them that he’d last seen her on Sunday night. He said that Marisol was supposed to be meeting up with another man, so he had dropped her off at the Moonlight Inn & Suites on Gulf Freeway around 11:30pm.
This story seemed off to Marisol’s family. Her stepmom Yesenia told KHOU, “Why did he leave [his] girlfriend [in] another man’s hands? For what reason? Because right now, I do not know that answer.”
Marisol’s phone activity also made them question Krystephor’s story. Her family tracked the phone’s location history and saw that at 4am on Tuesday, July 2nd, it had pinged in a wooded area behind a strip mall on East Freeway, nearly 30 miles from the Moonlight Inn on the other side of Houston. At 5:21am, the phone pinged a few miles west in Greater Fifth Ward before turning off. If Marisol’s phone had been on that whole time, why hadn’t she contacted her family? Had the phone been with her, or with someone else?
By this point, Marisol’s family was beyond frustrated. They had contacted the Houston Police Department and filed a missing persons report, but they were told that resources were limited and the department just didn’t have the manpower for an all-out search. They assured the family that in spite of this, the case was open and active and they would provide updates when they could.
Of course, Marisol’s family wasn’t going to wait around. They posted flyers around Houston with Marisol’s picture, particularly in the areas near where her phone had pinged. They posted on social media, gave interviews to local news stations, and contacted the mayor’s office to ask for help. They hired a private investigator and reached out to the Texas Center for the Missing and to Texas EquuSearch, a non-profit search and recovery group.
They also tracked down the person Krystephor said Marisol had been meeting the night she disappeared, a man named Justin Scarbrough. Marisol’s father Edward called Scarbrough and asked him point-blank if he knew where Marisol was. At first, Scarbrough claimed he didn’t know who Marisol was, but when Edward pressed him, he said he had dropped her off on Telephone Road, just a few miles from the Moonlight Inn. But Edward wasn’t buying it. He told Scarbrough that Marisol’s phone activity didn’t show her anywhere near Telephone Road. At that point, Scarbrough ended the conversation and hung up the phone.
As the weeks passed with no sign of Marisol and no updates from law enforcement, the family was struggling with the emotional toll of having a missing loved one. Edward told KPRC that it was terrifying to know that his daughter was out there somewhere, possibly in danger. “I haven’t slept properly since she went missing. Every time the news reports about a body being found, my heart stops. I just want her to come home.”
Then, in mid-October, the Houston Police Department reached out with an unexpected update – Marisol’s case was being transferred to their human trafficking unit.
According to court documents, a month before Marisol went missing, detectives had discovered her picture on a website advertising sex work. On June 4th, an undercover officer pretending to be a customer arranged to meet Marisol at a hotel off Katy Freeway. Inside the hotel room, police detained Marisol, who admitted to exchanging sex for money. She told them that her boyfriend Krystephor was the one who arranged all of her appointments. He would drive her to the meetup location then wait in the car until she was done. He would then take a percentage of the money she made from the encounter.
Marisol allowed detectives to search her phone and perform a digital extraction of her text conversations with Krystephor, which backed up her story. It was clear that Krystephor was the one controlling Marisol’s sex work, everything from telling her what to write in her ads to deciding how far she could travel to meet a date.
Krystephor Brown had a long history of criminal activity in Houston, with charges dating back to 2014 for possession, unlawful carry, domestic assault, and soliciting prostitution. He was no stranger to police.
While Marisol was being questioned, officers outside the hotel saw Krystephor parked in his black sedan just as Marisol had described. They approached him and made a positive identification, but they did not arrest him at that time. Marisol was released and allowed to go home, but just a few weeks later, she disappeared.
Shortly after Marisol was reported missing, a detective assigned to her case discovered her involvement in the undercover raid back in June. He contacted the human trafficking unit and confirmed that it was indeed the same person. The departments agreed to work together to break up the sex trafficking ring and find Marisol. As frustrating as it was for Marisol’s family not to receive updates from police, detectives didn’t want to compromise either investigation by revealing too much too soon.
When detectives interviewed Krystephor shortly after Marisol’s disappearance, he told them that he had dropped her off at the Moonlight Inn on the night of June 30th to meet up with a buyer. Although he usually waited around until she was done with a date, he said that this time she was going to take an Uber home. He always tracked her location on the Life360 app, so he figured she would be fine. He didn’t see her again after that.
Detectives also interviewed the man Marisol was supposed to meet that night, Justin Scarbrough. Scarbrough had an extensive criminal record with multiple assault and firearms charges dating back to 2004. But while Scarbrough admitted that he agreed to pay Marisol for sex on the night of June 30th, he denied having anything to do with her disappearance.
In November of 2024, the Houston Police Department announced an arrest warrant for Krystephor Karvon Brown on charges of promotion of prostitution. In spite of his criminal history, he avoided jail time by posting a $50,000 bond. As of this recording, his case is still moving through the Harris County court system.
Although it wasn’t exactly the news they were hoping for, Marisol’s family was glad that Krystephor was facing charges that could possibly lead to Marisol’s recovery. Sorangely told Fox26, “What’s in my heart now is a little hope and joy that we’re getting closer to what’s happening with my sister. They are finally making charges against Krystephor. I’ve been waiting for that for the longest.”
Marisol’s mother Juana shared Sorangely’s hope, but also her fear. “I just want her back alive. We’ve been worried about if they wanted to make her disappear because she knows something that they don’t want anyone to know.”
In spite of all they’ve been through, Marisol’s family is clinging to the hope that she will come back to them. They believe that she is still alive and may need help escaping a dangerous trafficking situation. Sorangely told KPRC that they need the public’s assistance to make this happen. “If you have any information, please don’t be afraid to come forward, even anonymously. [Marisol] is a strong individual, and we’re going to keep pushing until we bring her home.”
Angela Marisol Diaz was 22 years old when she disappeared on the night of June 30, 2024. She was last seen at the Moonlight Inn & Suites on Gulf Freeway in Houston, Texas. Police believe she may have been at or near the 8500 block of Park Place Blvd near Galveston Road before traveling to a neighborhood in Greater Fifth Ward. Marisol is described as a Black, Hispanic woman, 5’7” tall with curly brown hair. She has a tattoo on her hand as well as a tattoo of a key under her ear.
If you have any information about the disappearance or whereabouts of Angela Marisol Diaz, please contact the Houston Police Department at 832-394-1840. And please share Marisol’s story on social media so she can finally come home.