Marissa Carmichael Is Still Missing and the Case Remains Unsolved

As of January 2026, the Greensboro Police Department confirms that the investigation is still active, with no new public updates available. Detectives have followed up on tips, including false alarms like the discovery of a body near the Greensboro Arboretum in March 2025, which turned out not to be Marissa.

That’s the frustrating reality at the two-year mark: this case has never stopped hurting her family, and it has never stopped bothering the Greensboro community—because the last known timeline is public, the distress is documented, and the answers still haven’t come.

Marissa Carmichael, a 24-year-old mother of five, disappeared in the early morning hours of January 14, 2024, after making a frantic 911 call from a Greensboro gas station. Since then, investigators have reviewed surveillance footage, collected tips, and kept the case in national missing-person databases. But despite all of that, Marissa has not been found.

The night Marissa vanished

Marissa was last seen around 3:46 a.m. on January 14, 2024 at the Exxon gas station on East Market Street in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Reports say she had been out earlier that night, and by the time she arrived at the gas station she sounded distressed. In her 911 call, Marissa reported that a man had taken her phone and left her stranded. Dispatch urged her to go inside the store for safety.

That call is one of the reasons this case has stayed so heavy: it captured fear in real time. It wasn’t a vague “she didn’t come home.” It was a moment where she was actively asking for help—then she vanished.

Surveillance video and what police have said publicly

Surveillance footage captured Marissa entering a vehicle shortly after the call. Police later identified and interviewed the driver. In public reporting, the driver has been described as a witness, not a suspect.

That detail matters because it leaves the public with a hard question: if investigators were able to locate the driver in the footage, why does the timeline still end in darkness? And if law enforcement has reasons for keeping key details private—as they often do—families and the public are still left with the same painful outcome: uncertainty.

Authorities have not publicly confirmed foul play. But the circumstances—a late-night distress call followed by silence—keep the concern high.

Two years later: what we know, and what we don’t

At this point, there are only a few things the public can say with confidence:

• Marissa is still missing.

• The investigation remains open.

• Tips continue to be followed up, including leads that ultimately turn out to be dead ends.

• There is still no public closure for her children or her mother.

And that’s why anniversaries like this matter. Because time passing can slowly quiet public attention, even while families live with the same unanswered questions every single day.

The family left behind

Marissa’s disappearance didn’t just remove one person. It reshaped an entire family’s life.

Her five children have been forced to grow up with a missing piece where their mother should be. Her mother and loved ones have continued to speak out, asking the community to keep sharing her name and her face. That kind of pain doesn’t run on a calendar. It sits there. It lingers. It changes people.

And it’s exactly why families keep pushing for coverage long after headlines fade—because the story is not “over” just because the news cycle moved on.

Why cases like this need sustained attention

There’s a hard truth that families of missing people learn quickly: attention is pressure, and pressure can produce movement.

The more people who remember Marissa’s name, the more likely it is that:

• someone recognizes a detail they dismissed,

• someone decides to finally say what they know,

• someone searches their memory and connects a dot.

Even “small” tips can matter in investigations like this, especially when the case hinges on a narrow window of time and a limited known timeline.

How you can help

If you have any information about Marissa Carmichael’s whereabouts or what happened in the early morning hours of January 14, 2024, contact:

• Greensboro Police Department: (336) 373-2222

• Greensboro/Guilford Crime Stoppers: (336) 373-1000 (anonymous tips)

And if you don’t have information, you can still help by sharing her photo and her name. That’s not performative. That’s practical. Missing persons cases don’t solve themselves in silence.

Two years is too long.

It’s too long for a mother to be gone without answers. Too long for children to keep asking questions no one can answer. Too long for a community to carry a story that began with a call for help and ended with a void.

Marissa Carmichael is still missing. The investigation is still active. And someone out there knows something that could change everything.