✝️ Mercedes Marianne Vega, age 22 – April 16 2023, Tempe, Arizona, USA 🇺🇸 💔
Mercedes was a beautiful young child who loved horses and babies. She played the violin, and had a beautiful singing voice. Mercedes sang the national Anthem at many sports games and special events. She was a straight “A” student throughout her young school career. She was an incredible swimmer and loved the ocean. She used to say, “My soul belongs in Hawaii.”
Mercedes was an exotic dancer and aspiring personal trainer:
She was working in a strip club in Phoenix at the time of her murder.
Mercedes endured a violent robbery three years before her death. The robbery took place in October 2020 outside a Phoenix apartment complex where Vega was living. She was held at gunpoint and shoved to the ground and her life was threatened.
She was so traumatized by the incident she refused to return to the her apartment afterward, her mother said. “I couldn’t even walk behind her without her falling to her knees and crying because she was so terrified.”
Mercedes was headed out for a fun night with friends when she was struck in the head and abducted from the underground parking garage of her apartment.
Police found her body just a few hours later in a fiery vehicle on Interstate 10 just west of Tonopah at around 12:30 a.m. on April 17. State troopers responded to the vehicle fire and called in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office after discovering Vega’s body. She was shot, struck in the head and had bleach poured in her throat before dying of smoke inhalation, according to the Maricopa County Medical Examiner.
On Nov. 11, authorities arrested 22-year-old Sencere Hayes in Tennessee in connection with her death.
