Case Details
- Photo URLs:
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- Missing Since:
- Missing Since 01/03/1999
- Missing From:
- Missing From Forest Acres, South Carolina
- Classification:
- Classification Endangered Missing
- Gender:
- Female
- Race:
- Race White
- Date of Birth:
- Date of Birth 08/03/1973 (51)
- Age:
- Age 25 years old
- Height and Weight:
- Height and Weight 5’6, 120 pounds
- Clothing/Jewelry Description:
- Clothing/Jewelry Description A light green sweater, a navy blue three-quarter length coat, gray pants, black shoes, a dark pink or black knit hat and a large silver ring. Carrying a medium-sized dark brown purse.
- Distinguishing Characteristics:
- Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Blonde hair, brown eyes. Merchant often wears her hair in ponytails or braids. She has dimples.
- Details of Disappearance:
- On January 3, 1999, a woman named Merchant left her home in Forest Acres, South Carolina, around 6:30 PM to go to a church meeting. She never arrived. Her tan 1989 Nissan Sentra was found burned and abandoned in Columbia, South Carolina, around midnight. Merchant was gone.
Police are looking into whether a man named Reinaldo Javier “Ray” Rivera is connected to her disappearance. Rivera was convicted in 2004 of murdering a police officer and several other women in Georgia. He lived in South Carolina in the early 1990s and knew the area where Merchant’s car was found. While there are differences between Merchant and Rivera’s other victims, there are similarities that make him a person of interest. He’s also a suspect in other unsolved disappearances in South Carolina.
Merchant was a Georgia State University graduate who planned to go to the University of South Carolina for graduate school. Her case remains a mystery.
- Agency:
- Forest Acres Police Department 803-782-9444
- Source Links:
This person was missing Missing Since 01/03/1999