On her 22nd birthday, Ruthey Smith’s family and friends gathered Friday under a new billboard in Long Beach to ask the public for help finding her after she’s been missing for nearly three years.
Ruthey, a North Long Beach resident, was last seen the evening of March 2, 2022, in South Los Angeles near the intersection of Figueroa Street and 69th Street.
Her family suspects she was a victim of sex trafficking and has put themselves at great risk trying to find Ruthey — a journey that’s chronicled in the 12-minute mini-documentary above.
Ruthey’s mother, Kathryn Renesto, said she essentially lived out of her car on Figueroa Street for three months after her daughter’s disappearance, she said.
During that time, she had several confrontations with pimps and had her car shot at while trying to find information on her daughter’s whereabouts, Renesto said. She has also searched in Las Vegas and San Diego.
“Only 1% of these victims come back alive,” Renesto said. “My daughter deserves to be that 1%.”
Ruthey’s family has reason to believe she is still alive, said Moses Castillo, a private investigator hired by the family.
He recently submitted the family’s DNA sample to a service that checks a database of unidentified Jane Does and it did not return any matches for Ruthey.
The new billboard, on Spring Street just east of Orange Avenue, was set up at no cost by Clear Channel through an agreement with the city of Long Beach.
It describes Ruthey as a 5-foot-6 black woman with brown hair and brown eyes who weighed about 152 pounds when she went missing. She has “Ezra” tattooed near her left ear, “Lamarion” with a crown symbol tattooed near her right ear and her daughter’s name “Ocean” tattooed on her chest along with a wave.
Ruthey, who also has her nose and navel pierced, also used the names Grayson and Winter.
“My daughter was a bright ball of energy,” Renesto said. “She has vanished and we need to know what happened to her.”
Anyone with information on Ruthey’s whereabouts is urged to call the Long Beach Police Missing Persons Detail at 562-570-7246 or submit a tip anonymously through LA Crime Stoppers.
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Video by Thomas Cordova. Story by Jacob Sisneros.