The Disappearance of Danielle Lopez

In April 2024, Danielle Lopez traveled to the Brendan T. Byrne State Forest in the Pine Barrens of South Jersey — a remote and sprawling wilderness straddling Burlington and Ocean counties — to go camping and watch a solar eclipse. She was with her on-again, off-again boyfriend of seven years, James Scott Dunn. The Pine Barrens span nearly a million acres of coastal plain forest, and the area is remote enough to have earned a cultural reputation for its isolation. On the evening of Friday, April 12, she called her mother from the campground and sounded comfortable and in good spirits.

The following morning — Saturday, April 13 — Danielle was captured on surveillance footage at the Wawa on Route 72 in the Vincentown section of Southampton Township at 9:11 a.m. She had purchased a coffee. Her mother, who shares a Wawa card with Danielle, was able to track the transaction through an app. Danielle is seen leaving the store smiling. According to her mother, she was not alone at the Wawa, but police have not disclosed who was with her. Officials confirmed they interviewed that companion.

That afternoon, Danielle was driving down Lost Lane Road in Penn State Forest in Woodland Township — about 12 miles from the campground — when her car became stuck in a large muddy puddle. A couple driving with a GoPro mounted on their dashboard captured her twice: first in her car, then walking on the road after the vehicle got stuck. She asked them for help. They declined and drove on. Around 6 p.m., a blogger and freelance photographer who was also in the area spoke with Danielle directly. She told him she had been distracted by the trees when she drove into the puddle and couldn't get out. That was the last confirmed interaction anyone had with her. After dark, a good Samaritan towed her car out of the mud — but Danielle never came back to it. She has not been seen since.

The investigation is being conducted jointly by the New Jersey State Police's Major Crimes South Unit and Missing Persons Unit. Detective Sergeant Ryan Labriola and Detective Alexandra Alvarez are among the investigators named publicly. Police have deployed ground search personnel, canine, horseback, ATVs, drones, helicopters, and a marine unit in the areas surrounding the campground and Lost Lane Road. As of the time of writing, "dozens of people" have been interviewed, including Danielle's boyfriend James Scott Dunn, the companion who was with her at the Wawa, and multiple people who were around Danielle in the days leading up to her disappearance. No suspects have been named. Police have found no evidence of foul play.

The GoPro footage from the couple on Lost Lane remains unreleased to the public. Police have described what it shows — Danielle walking alone, without visible signs of distress — but have not shared the video itself. Similarly, only a still frame from the Wawa footage has been publicly released. The full video of Danielle at the store that morning has not been made public. Her phone is believed to be with her, but has not been located; no pings or activity have been detected. There has been no financial activity of any kind since her disappearance.

Sue Quackenbush has said unspecified authorities told her Danielle's disappearance occurred under suspicious circumstances, though NJSP detectives have not publicly characterized the case that way and have stated they have no evidence pointing to foul play. The investigation has generated significant media attention, including coverage from NBC Dateline and NBC Dateline: Missing in America podcast (Season 4 premiere, June 2025), America's Most Wanted: Missing Persons on Fox, Oxygen, and Crime Online. The NJ State Police confirmed in early 2026 that the case remains an active investigation.

Sue Quackenbush is personally offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to Danielle's location or safe recovery. As she said: "I know there's people that know. Answers will turn this terror into grief." Anonymous tips are accepted.

Danielle Evelyn Lopez was 37 years old. She was loud in the best way — the kind of person who filled a room. Her mother named her Danielle, and Danielle liked to remind people what that meant: not Dan-Quiet. Dan-Yell. She was a cheerleader. She was close to her grandfather in a way that newspapers wrote about. She was kind and loving and loyal, and she had faced an almost incomprehensible amount of loss in a short life — two brothers, a grandfather, a father — and she was still here, still hopeful, still camping in the Pine Barrens on a spring weekend to watch a solar eclipse.

The last footage of her shows her walking out of a Wawa with a coffee, smiling. The last interaction anyone had with her, she was explaining to a stranger how she drove her car into a puddle because she was looking at the trees. That is the person she was — someone who got distracted by trees.

Her mother Sue has already buried two of her children. She has not buried Danielle. She has billboards up on I-295. She has offered $25,000 of her own money for answers. She said it plainly: "Answers will turn this terror into grief." That is what she is waiting for. That is what Danielle deserves. She is not forgotten. If you know something, please come forward.