According to interviews with people close to the victim and police records reviewed by ESPN, Pennel and Carli Franchesca Guzmán Roche frequently spent time together when Pennel was in the Dominican Republic, where he owned a property in the resort area of Puerto Plata until 2025. Her family reported her missing on Sept. 11, 2021, but her body was not found until January 2026, when the new owner was doing excavation work.
During that September 2021 visit to Pennel's neighborhood, Guzmán's grandmother and a family attorney told ESPN, a strong odor of decay was obvious, but police told the family the smell probably was from a dead animal, and they did not expand their search to the place from where the smell was emanating -- Pennel's backyard.