14-Year-Old Girl's Disappearance Spurs Forest Hills Search Party

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS -- The disappearance of a 14-year-old Forest Hills girl on Thursday has prompted a campaign among loved ones, fellow churchgoers and even strangers to help bring her home safely.

Jocelyn Zacarias was last seen at about 7:15 a.m. outside Rego Fresh Marketplace at 63-76 Woodhaven Boulevard, where she worked, cops said. But the teen never showed up to her scheduled shift.

Her mother, Mickey Blume-Zacarias, told Patch she last saw Jocelyn that morning before leaving to drop off her husband at the train station. When she returned home, her daughter was gone.

"She didn't tell us where she was going," Blume-Zacarias said. "Everybody's baffled. Nobody has any real idea where she is or why."

Blume-Zacarias said it wasn't like her daughter to run away. Jocelyn, she said, had developed a reputation throughout the community as "a model child" who was actively involved in their church, school sports and Precinct 112's local "Police Explorers" program.

"She's a good girl, which is why this is so surprising," Blume-Zacarias said.

But police labeled Zacarias' disappearance as a runaway after learning from her mother that the teen was "hanging with the wrong crowd" and had started to act out, an NYPD spokeswoman told Patch.

Still, the description doesn't add up to community members, who on Thursday spread word of Jocelyn's disappearance across social media in an attempt to find her.

"She's a nice kid," Barbara Glick, a family friend, told Patch . "She's smart and beautiful and intelligent and personable. This is very bizarre."

Glick, who met the Zacarias family through Saint Luke's Church years ago, is among members of the congregation who have taken to social media to spread word of Jocelyn's disappearance. The church itself posted a missing flyer to its Facebook page Thursday afternoon.

Others in the community spread similar flyers and photos to Queens neighborhood Facebook groups in hopes of tracking the teen down. Blume-Zacarias said her husband and friends have been out hanging flyers and combing the community for their daughter all day.

Blume-Zacarias, on the other hand, must stay at home in case her daughter shows up.

"At this point it's just kind of a waiting period," she said. "I have to hold out hope that she'll come home. This just isn't typically her."

Police described Jocelyn as standing about 5-foot-1 and weighing roughly 110 pounds. She was last seen wearing white sneakers and a red hat.

Anyone with information in regards to this missing is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or Precinct 112 at 718-520-9311.

Lead photo courtesy of Mickey Blume-Zacarias