Forgotten in Sarasota

On May 1, 2005, forty-five-year-old Carey Lisa Jones disappeared from Sarasota, Florida. Nearly twenty years later, her case remains unsolved — a haunting silence that continues to weigh on her family and community.

Carey was multiracial: African-American (Creole), Caucasian, and Native American. She was also an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation. Friends and family described her as striking — a woman who could easily be mistaken for white or Hispanic, with black hair and unique brown-green eyes.

When she vanished, Carey stood 5’4” tall, weighed about 110 pounds, and was last seen wearing a blue and purple t-shirt, blue jeans, and possibly a necklace with a bronze coin — a necklace that has become a haunting symbol of her disappearance. She also carried distinguishing marks: a tattoo of a biplane on the inside of her right ankle, scars on the insides of both elbows, pierced ears, and a missing upper-left tooth.

Despite these identifying details, few answers have surfaced. Carey was last seen in Sarasota, and then — nothing. No confirmed sightings. No phone calls. No trail to follow.

Her case is complicated not just by time, but by the painful truth that women of color — particularly Native and biracial women — often do not receive the same public attention when they go missing. Carey’s disappearance slipped quickly out of headlines, leaving her family to carry the burden of remembrance largely alone.

Today, Carey would be 65 years old. She has missed nearly two decades of birthdays, holidays, and family milestones. Somewhere, someone knows what happened that May day in Sarasota.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Carey Lisa Jones, please contact the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office at 941-861-4935.

Carey’s story deserves to be told. She deserves to be found. And her family deserves the answers that have been withheld for far too long.