Parents and friends of Mercedes Vega are speaking out in the hopes that someone will come forward with information that will lead to an arrest for shooting the 22-year-old, dumping bleach down her throat, and burning her alive in the back seat of a car back in April.
Silent Witness, a non-profit group that works with the Phoenix Police Department, shined a light Tuesday on the tragic case in which there is still no suspect, holding a press conference where Mercedes Vega’s parents and friends gathered to demand justice.
Erika Pillsbury, Mercedes Vega’s mother, spoke first through tears.
“She was mine. She was my baby,” the heartbroken mother said. “When someone comes to your door at night and tells you that your child is gone, just the word deceased, anything that … I miss her. It’s so hard to believe that she’s gone. It’s so hard to believe I’m never going to see her again. I miss her so much.”
“She was so bright. She was such a beautiful, sweet, kind soul, and she didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve what happened to her,” Erika said. “Just doesn’t seem real that she’s gone. I just — she was mine. The person that did this had no right to take her away. No right.”
One of Mercedes’ friends, Kenzo, delivered an emotional statement next, vowing to get the justice that Vega deserves.
“I’ll be damned if these vile, evil people get away with what they did to you,” she said, adding that the news of Mercedes’ violent death made it feel “as if my soul was ripped from my body.”
“At the very least you deserve your justice, and we will get it if it’s the last thing I do,” Kenzo added.
Mercedes Vega’s parents Erika Pillsbury and Tom Pillsbury, pictured on Nov. 28, 2023 pleading for help solving daughter’s murder. (Fox 10 Phoenix/screengrab); photo of Mercedes Vega from Silent Witness flyer.
Tom Pillsbury, Mercedes’ father, was wearing a shirt with photos of Vega on it. He said that the Pillsburys are a blended family and that Mercedes was not his biological daughter.
“Mercedes doesn’t know her father, I’m her father,” Tom said. “She challenged me, and she also made me a better man.”
Vega’s father said that whoever murdered Mercedes must be brought to justice: “We need to get these people caught.”
“I feel I can’t be silent anymore. I don’t care if the person sees me, I really don’t. What they did, they need to be punished for. No one’s family should go through what we’re going through, and if this is bigger than my daughter and it stops other things from happening, my daughter’s life was taken for a good reason,” he said.
Tom Pillsbury begged for the public’s help in solving the case.
“I need someone to come forward, I really do. I don’t know how else I can beg you to come forward, I really don’t. You have a conscience. Think of what happened to her. Would you want that to happen to you or someone you know? You would not,” Tom said. “It was terrible what happened to her. Terrible.”
“I don’t want this to be another family,” he added.
Silent Witness is currently offering a reward of up to $2,000 for information that will help detectives understand “what led up to this violent murder and identifying who is responsible.”
Vega, a club dancer from Tempe, was last seen alive on April 16 surveillance video entering her apartment parking garage for what was supposed to be a night out with friends at Dave & Buster’s.
Mercedes Vega pictured (inset) and in surveillance footage looking at her phone as she walks into apartment parking garage to meet friends at Dave & Busters (images via KTVK/KPHO)
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office previously said authorities responded to a car fire I-10 near Tonopah after midnight on April 17.
Mercedes Vega was found dead in the back seat of the vehicle. She had been shot in the arm, beaten, had bleach in her throat, and died of smoke inhalation while being burned alive, her parents revealed in late October, citing autopsy results. The Pillsburys said it was clear Mercedes “suffered and was tortured.”
“To do what you would do to someone, you really have no soul,” Tom Pillsbury told KTVK/KPHO.
Tom and Erika Pillsbury speak on death of 22-year-old daughter Mercedes Vega (YouTube/KTVK/KPHO screengrab)
“I believe someone was forcing her or trying to force her to do something that she said no,” Erika Pillsbury also said. “I know she died fighting.”
According to Mercedes’ obituary, Vega “had a huge heart, she always stood up for others and protected those who could not protect themselves.”
“In her ‘Celebration of Life’ book her friends wrote so many things showing how she touched people’s lives. They wrote such things as, ‘I hope you still watch over us, we need you.,’ and ‘You were always a ‘safe’ person for me,” and ‘Thank you for showing me how to be a strong woman.’ Finally, our personal favorite, ‘I want to be YOU when I grow up,’” the obit said.
Watch the Tuesday press conference in full here:
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