In Paramount+’s “Never Seen Again,” a 22-year-old single mother named Chelsea Cobo goes missing in Brooklyn, New York, in May 2016.
Rose, her mother, was determined to find her and spent almost all of her time looking for her, when she wasn’t taking care of her grandchild. So, we’ve got you covered if you want to know more about the case and Chelsea. Then, shall we get started?
Where Did Chelsea Cobo Go?
Chelsea Michelle Cobo was born on November 8, 1993, in Brooklyn, New York. The 13-month-old girl moved in with her paternal aunt, Rose Cobo, in December 1994, because both of her parents were showing signs of mental illness and couldn’t take care of her. Rose took her in when she was about 7 years old. Christopher was born on July 11, 2015, when Chelsea was 21 years old.
But around October 2016, the young mother began going out a lot. Rose said that Chelsea was probably depressed after giving birth. When she heard that her biological mother had died on February 27, 2016, she fell into a deep depression. Rose took her to Coney Island Hospital because she was scared. In April 2016, Chelsea was let out of the hospital. For about ten days, everything seemed fine.
On April 21, 2016, she went to a place she had told her family about to hang out with friends. She didn’t come home for about five days, until Rose said she would report her missing. On April 24, Chelsea took a selfie, which Rose later looked at closely and saw that her right arm was bruised. Rose was upset when her daughter told her that she had been “drugged and robbed” the night before. She rushed her daughter to the Maimonides Hospital, where doctors found Oxycodone in her system.
Chelsea was admitted to the psych ward, where she stayed for a week until May 3. The next day, she supposedly went to get her hair cut and run a few errands, but when her mother picked her up, she was very high. Chelsea said she was high because of the new medicines her doctor had given her. Rose would find out later that her daughter had lied and gone to meet a “Anthony” who used to visit her roommate Sabrine at the Coney Island Hospital.
Anthony is said to have sold drugs and to have given some to Chelsea. Rose took her daughter to Lutheran Hospital for detox on May 6, 2016. But Chelsea didn’t show up at the hospital, and Rose finally got in touch with her at 11:35 p.m. on May 7. She talked to Chelsea for a long time. Chelsea said she was out with her boyfriend, whom she later found out was Anthony, and that they were getting sushi and ice cream before going home. The last time Rose spoke with her daughter was then.
Rose got a voicemail from her “boyfriend,” who said he had dropped off Chelsea a few blocks from her house. Later that night, when her daughter still hadn’t come home, she reported her missing to the 66th Precinct of the NYPD. The police started looking into it and found two surveillance videos of her. One was from May 7, 2016, at 1:40 a.m., when she was seen getting out of a taxi near the now-closed La Floridita Restaurant and Club.
The other video showed a woman who looked like Chelsea leaving an apartment on 51st Street in Sunset Park. The apartment belonged to a family friend of the man she had been doing drugs with the night she went missing. Police thought that the woman in the video was Chelsea, but Rose didn’t believe them. Over the next few years, Chelsea’s case was passed from one NYPD division to another, from the Missing Persons Division to the Sex-Trafficking Division.
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Is Chelsea Cobo still alive or dead?
In January 2019, Rose met with the owner of the house where Chelsea was said to have been doing drugs before she went missing. She was determined to solve the mystery. He admitted in a scary way that Chelsea had died of an overdose and that his roommate had asked him to help get rid of the body, which was wrapped in a blanket. Rose told the NYPD that she had given them a recording of the confession.
In March 2019, Rose found out that Chelsea’s case was being treated as a murder case, and it was said that the 66th Precinct and the NYPD Homicide Squad would work together to solve the case. But so far, Rose doesn’t know which department is in charge of Chelsea’s case or what else is going on with the investigation. Rose still puts up flyers and runs a memorial page on Facebook to try to find her daughter.
Roe has also hired two private investigators, calls the police often, and looks at the escort listings often. She is also working on an app that will help people who have gone missing find their way back home. She said, “Hey, pumpkin, if you’re out there watching this, I love you and want you to come home. I will always try to find you. So, I’m making this app so that when I die, you can hear my voice through it. To find you and everyone else out there. I love you.”
Rose, Chelsea’s desperate mother, has been trying to find her for almost six years. She has found out her daughter’s darkest secrets, put herself in danger to get answers from people who don’t want to talk, and held the NYPD and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office accountable.
This is the story of a mother who doesn’t give up trying to figure out what happened to her daughter and is willing to follow clues wherever they lead.
Chelsea moves in with Rose on December 10, 1994. Chelsea’s father was the brother of Rose. Both he and Chelsea’s mother had mental illnesses that made it hard for them to take care of Chelsea.
1999/2000: When Chelsea is 7 years old, Rose adopts her. Since Chelsea was 13 months old, Rose had been taking care of her. Chelsea’s father was the brother of Rose. Both he and Chelsea’s mother had mental illnesses that made it hard for them to take care of Chelsea.
The month of October 2016 – Chelsea goes out to parties more often and spends less time with her son. Rose said that it is likely that she is going through postpartum depression.
February 27th, 2016 – Chelsea’s birth mother dies, and she starts to feel very sad.
Between March 24 and April 12, 2016, Chelsea stays at Coney Island Hospital. She has a roommate who talks her into letting people in under Chelsea’s name. The roommate can’t have anyone else over.
April 12–April 21, 2016: After being in the hospital, Chelsea stays at home with Rose.
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April 21 – 24, 2016 – Chelsea goes out and doesn’t come home, but her family knew she was with friends and knew where she was. She doesn’t come home on the night she said she would. Rose starts sending her texts because she is worried, but she doesn’t answer at first. Rose says she will have to tell the police that she is missing. Chelsea tells her mom right away that she’s fine and to “chill out.”
April 24, 2016, Chelsea is out at night and takes a selfie. Rose finds the picture and what look like bruises on Chelsea’s right arm much later.
April 25, 2016: Chelsea goes home again and records herself walking in the front door. Rose comes home from taking a friend to work in Manhattan, and when she goes upstairs to check on Chelsea, she doesn’t hear anything. Chelsea told Rose that the night before, she had been “drugged and robbed.” Chelsea is taken to Maimonides Hospital for treatment. Doctors have found Oxy in her body.
May 4, 2016: For Rose’s birthday, Chelsea goes to “run errands” and get her “hair done.” When Rose picks her up, Chelsea seems to be high. She tells Rose that it’s because she just started taking psychiatric drugs. Rose finds out later that Chelsea didn’t run errands, but that she did see the visitor from the hospital and that he brought her medicine.
May 6, 2016 – Rose hears sounds coming from the bathroom early in the morning. She slams the door and sees Chelsea holding a syringe. Chelsea says that she wants to stop using drugs. Rose brings Chelsea to the Lutheran Hospital so she can get clean. The hospital recommends that she go to St. John’s Riverside Hospital in Yonkers. Later that night, Chelsea’s friend calls Rose at home to ask if she got home from the hospital. Rose is aware that Chelsea should be at the hospital. She sends Chelsea a text message.
At 11:35 p.m. on May 6, 2016, Chelsea calls Rose, and the two of them talk for 13 minutes. Chelsea says that she and her boyfriend, whom she calls the hospital visitor, are going to get “sushi and ice cream” and then she’ll be home. This is the last time Rose and Chelsea will talk.
May 7, 2016: A visitor from the hospital tells Rose in a voicemail that he dropped Chelsea off at 68th Street in Bay Parkway, which is just a few blocks from where Chelsea lived. He later tells Rose in a text message that Chelsea was talking to a woman on the phone while he and Chelsea were in the car.
Around 1:40 a.m. on May 7, 2016 – Chelsea takes a cab and gets dropped off near La Floridita Restaurant and Club, which doesn’t exist anymore. We don’t know if she went into the restaurant or not. The police looked at the surveillance footage and didn’t see her there. They told Rose that the video isn’t very clear and isn’t very good.
May 7, 2016 (1:41 am) – A man tells Rose in a voicemail that he just dropped Chelsea off at her house, but she was already leaving. He says that he has nothing to do with anything else she does.
May 10, 2016 – Surveillance footage shows a woman who looks like Chelsea leaving a house on 51st Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park. The man whose house they were all doing drugs at the night Chelsea went missing is a family friend of the person who owns the house. Police were given the surveillance video by the family. The NYPD is sure that Chelsea is the one. Rose does not. The NYPD never said for sure whether or not the woman was Chelsea.
May 14, 2016 – Rose finds out that NYPD detectives tried to talk to the roommate from the hospital at her apartment in Brooklyn, but the roommate’s mother wouldn’t let them talk to her daughter.
The Brooklyn DA talks to Chelsea’s roommate from Coney Island Hospital on September 19, 2016. She says that she, Chelsea, and two other men were doing drugs at a house on Brooklyn’s 56th Street. The roommate said that Chelsea left with one of those men, and she hasn’t heard from them since.
September 27, 2016 – The Brooklyn DA talks to the man whose house the roommate said they were all at on the night Chelsea went missing. The roommate said that they were doing drugs at his house.
June 7, 2017 – A detective tells Rose that they could have “tried harder” to look at other cameras on 51st Street, where they saw a woman who looked like Chelsea leaving a house on surveillance video. He said that detectives “could have” looked at other cameras along the street to see where the woman went.
March 1, 2018 – Rose talks to an NYPD detective about how things are going with the case.
March 2, 2018 – Rose talks with a detective from the NYPD about Chelsea’s case. Rose’s call is cut off by the detective.
Summer of 2018: The Brooklyn DA tells Rose that they are ending the investigation into sex trafficking because they don’t think Chelsea was trafficked. They give the case back to Missing Persons.
January 27, 2019: Rose talks to the man who lived in the house where Chelsea, her roommate, and another man did drugs the night Chelsea went missing. He tells Rose that Chelsea overdosed and that Chelsea’s roommate asked him to help get rid of her body by putting needles around it and wrapping it in a blanket. Rose gives the tape to the NYPD that same day.
March 7, 2019 – Rose learns that Chelsea’s case is leaving the Missing Persons Squad and going back to the detective who was in charge of it in the 66th Precinct. The NYPD Homicide Squad will now help with the investigation. Rose still doesn’t know where the NYPD is with Chelsea’s case. Kristin Thorne, an investigator for Eyewitness News, asked the NYPD which division is in charge of Chelsea’s case. They said they had asked the person who would know the answer, but that person never replied.
The idea for this series came to me in September of 2021, when I was writing about Gabby Petito’s disappearance and met her upset parents on Long Island. The story kept me busy for the next two months.
During this time, I talked to Gabby’s dad, Joseph Petito, often. I haven’t written about most of what we talked about, but he made it clear that he wanted the media to report on other missing people. He said that they also needed to be noticed, and he was right.
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