Family still ‘disturbed’ by trans woman’s mysterious disappearance from DFW Airport
Exactly one year ago, a trans woman disappeared from the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The only hint of what happened to Pauline Norberto del Mundo comes from surveillance footage of her walking through a construction area at 3:52 a.m.
Over the past year, DFW Airport detectives, the family and various nonprofits have searched for Pauline del Mundo, the woman’s sister, Yolanda del Mundo, said.
The Malaya Movement of Northern Texas, a human rights group, and Community United Effort for Missing Persons have been helping Pauline del Mundo’s five sisters in their search. The groups recently coordinated a search with 13 volunteers on the airport grounds. In October, another physical search is scheduled to cover other areas outside the airport terminal.
On Sept. 14, 2019, Pauline was last seen at a terminal in the airport waiting for a flight. Pauline was supposed to fly to Cozumel, Mexico, but she called one of her five sisters and said she wanted to return to Tampa, Florida, instead.
Pauline, 59, seemed confused, disoriented and afraid on the phone, Yolanda said. She never got on a plane and family members have not heard from her since.
Detectives do not believe that Pauline left the airport through Uber, taxi or bus, or an airplane, Yolanda said.
The intersection where she was last seen is surrounded by construction ditches, ravines, swampy areas, a small lake and wooded areas.
Yolanda described the video surveillance that is the last known sighting of her sister. The video shows Pauline walking around the airport grounds on Sept. 14. She sits on a curb on the south end of the airport’s warehouse district off the intersection of South 20th Avenue and 5 Airfield. The video shows her abruptly get up and walk away from the curb at 3:52 a.m., walk around the corner and disappear from view.
Yolanda said they are “puzzled and disturbed” by Pauline’s disappearance, and worry she has been “nabbed, assaulted, kidnapped, murdered, mutilated or gone aimlessly walking without direction” in an unfamiliar area.
Pauline del Mundo, an American citizen of Asian-Filipino ethnicity, lived in Tampa, where she worked as a nursing assistant at a federal veterans hospital. Yolanda said their family was especially concerned because at the time Pauline went missing, police were investigating a string of suspected hate crimes against trans women in Dallas.
Her family has been “praying and hoping that she will be found safe in the face of this pandemic in spite of her mental issues she (was) suffering (from) at the time when she vanished,” Yolanda said.
Pauline del Mundo’s case has been widely reported on — in February, her disappearance was discussed on the podcast Project Sunlight, which covers “ the epidemic of missing and murdered Filipinas” in the U.S.
This story was originally published September 14, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
