CA CA - Amalia Marquez, 43, Los Angeles, 1 May 1998

Amalia Monserrat Marquez Marin



(comments in blue added by me)

Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

• Missing Since: April 1998 from Los Angeles, California (approx 27 April - 1 May)
• Classification: Missing
• Date of Birth: April 4, 1955
• Age: 42 - 43 years old
• Height and Weight: 5'8, 130 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics: Hispanic (Puerto Rican) female. Gray hair, brown eyes. Marquez may use the alias names Amalia Marin and/or Talia Marin Bey.
(correction - Amalia Marin is her real name, her alias or cult name is Talia Bey)

Details of Disappearance

Marquez was last seen in Los Angeles, California during April 1998, three days prior to her forty-third birthday. She has never been heard from again. Marquez was the president of ClearGreen Inc. prior to her disappearance; ClearGreen followed the teachings of the author/guru Carlos Castaneda and led seminars based off his methods.
Castaneda died of liver cancer on April 27, 1998, but his death was not made public until June. April 1998 was the same month Marquez and did four of his other disciples disappeared. All of their telephone numbers were reportedly disconnected on the same day. The other individuals' photographs and information are unavailable (not correct). It's unclear whether they were ever found.

Marquez's family lives in Puerto Rico and are still searching for her. Her case remains unsolved.
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/m/marquez_amalia.html

Other profiles

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/19792/0/ - her age and nick names are listed wrong, under circumstances 1st April is wrong as well
http://dojapp.doj.ca.gov/missing/detail.asp?FCN=2740606200239
http://www.ncmissingpersons.org/amalia-marquez-marin/ - missing date, age and nick names wrong

April 11, 2014 MISSING AMALIA: Family pushes for new search in 1998 disappearance of California cult members

Her mother named her Amalia. New age guru Carlos Castaneda named her Talia Bey.
Her mother gave her life. The literary hoaxer turned cult leader’s final gift was most likely death.
...
She disappeared days after Castaneda died of complications of liver cancer on April 27, 1998. She took his ashes with her.
...
The names of the other missing women are Regine “Gina” Thal, alias Florinda Donner-Grau; Maryann Simko, aliases Anna Marie Carter and Taisha Abelar; Dee Ann Jo Ahlvers, alias Kylie Lundahl; and the fifth woman, Patricia Partin, alias Nuri (sometimes Nury) Alexander. Unlike Amalia, the other women were mostly longtime Castaneda followers and concubines, meeting the man at the height of his fame. Amalia didn’t come along until the early 1990s.
...
Cleargreen is the name of a for-profit organization founded in 1995 by Castaneda and his followers. The company travels around the world hosting seminars and lectures and teaching Tensegrity, a catalogue of ritualistic, new age body movements, similar to Tai Chi. Calls to Cleargreen for comment on this story were not returned. Before her disappearance, Amalia was president of Cleargreen.
...

A GIRL NAMED AMALIA

Amalia was among a group of young girls who grew up in the same family together, lots of cousins as well as a sister. Gutierrez remembers her demonstrating a fiery, independent streak from an early age.

Amalia was smart, too. She graduated from high school a year earlier than her peers. She traveled down the Amazon River by herself. She had a keen business sense and was generally much-loved by those who knew her.

Gutierrez was immensely fond of her cousin.

“I named my daughter after her,” she says.

Her daughter was born just about the time Amalia was becoming more and more immersed in Castaneda’s cult. A card congratulating Gutierrez on giving birth is one of the last times she heard from her.
...
A few years later, Amalia would call her mother in Puerto Rico, where she was originally from, and ask for all of the family photos with her in them. She wanted to destroy them.

It was then that the family realized Amalia was not simply working and traveling with some “flaky” group, but that something was wrong.

When Amalia’s father lay dying some time later, he desperately wanted to hear her voice one last time. A call to Cleargreen was answered by a stranger, who supplied a brisk, “she knows her father is dying,” and nothing more.

Amy Wallace, a Castaneda insider who wrote a 2003 book about her experience inside the cult titled “Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life With Carlos Castaneda,” recalled how Castaneda ridiculed Amalia for being too close to her family after that phone call about her dad. Her personal relationships were baggage that she needed to shed if she were to conform to his teachings.

In the end, that’s exactly what she did. Her loved ones today are sure it got her killed.
http://pvtimes.com/news/missing-ama...98-disappearance-california-cult-members.html

Amalia's family is looking for any information regarding her whereabouts. If you have any information, you can write the Marquez family (details in the link under the photo)
http://sustainedaction.org/Images_Photos/amalia_marquez_photo.htm

Her brothers and sister and cousins want to find her. Her parents died not knowing.

August 17, 2013 Disappeared: The Women of Tensegrity, missing 15 years.

In the spring of 1998, shortly after the death of New Age writer and philosopher Carlos Castaneda, five women closely connected with Castaneda and his movement, called “Tensegrity,” vanished from the Los Angeles area. Their names were Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar, Amalia Marquez, Kylie Lundahl, and Patricia Lee Partin. Aside from Partin, whose remains were discovered in 2003, all of the women remain missing to this day. The story behind their disappearances is strange, tangled and somewhat disturbing.
...
Shockingly, Amalia Marquez is the only one of the Tensegrity women whose disappearance was actively investigated by law enforcement. She is the only one who has a case file on the Charley Project.
...
What happened to the Tensegrity women? The bones of Patricia Partin provide the most useful clue. Although a definite cause of her demise couldn’t be determined, they don’t call the place her bones were found Death Valley for nothing.
https://seanmunger.com/2013/08/17/disappeared-the-women-of-tensegrity-missing-15-years/

Apr 12, 2007 The dark legacy of Carlos Castaneda

The godfather of the New Age led a secretive group of devoted followers in the last decade of his life. His closest "witches" remain missing, and former insiders, offering new details, believe the women took their own lives.
...
If this name draws a blank for readers under 30, all they have to do is ask their parents. Deemed by Time magazine the “Godfather of the New Age,” Castaneda was the literary embodiment of the Woodstock era. His 12 books, supposedly based on meetings with a mysterious Indian shaman, don Juan, made the author, a graduate student in anthropology, a worldwide celebrity. Admirers included John Lennon, William Burroughs, Federico Fellini and Jim Morrison.
...
Castaneda, who died in 1998, was, from 1971 to 1982, one of the best-selling nonfiction authors in the country. During his lifetime, his books sold at least 10 million copies.
...
At the heart of Castaneda’s movement was a group of intensely devoted women, all of whom were or had been his lovers. They were known as the witches, and two of them, Florinda Donner-Grau and Taisha Abelar, vanished the day after Castaneda’s death, along with Cleargreen president Amalia Marquez and Tensegrity instructor Kylie Lundahl. A few weeks later, Patricia Partin, Castaneda’s adopted daughter as well as his lover, also disappeared. In February 2006, a skeleton found in Death Valley, Calif., was identified through DNA analysis as Partin’s.

Some former Castaneda associates suspect the missing women committed suicide. They cite remarks the women made shortly before vanishing, and point to Castaneda’s frequent discussion of suicide in private group meetings. Achieving transcendence through a death nobly chosen, they maintain, had long been central to his teachings.
http://www.salon.com/2007/04/12/castaneda/

A website devoted to exploring and evaluating the claims of Carlos Castaneda (with images) - http://www.sustainedaction.org/

Updated 3/25/19:

Amalia Monserrat Marquez – The Charley Project

Missing From: Los Angeles, California
Missing: April 1, 1998
Age at Disappearance: 48
Height: 5′ 8″
Weight: 130
Hair: Gray
Eyes: Brown

Distinguishing Characteristics: Scars, Marks, Tattoos: Hispanic Female. Full Name: Amalia Marquez Marin AKA: Talia Marin Bey; Amalia Marin

Details of Disappearance: Amalia was last seen on April 1, 1998 in Los Angeles, CA. She was a follower of the author and Mystic Carlos Castaneda. She left Los Angeles after Castaneda’s death, together with some other of his followers. All of their telephone numbers were disconnected on the same day. One of the women was later found deceased in the desert. Amalia was president of Cleargreen, a company that organized Castaneda’s seminars.

• 
• 

Marquez, circa 1998

• Missing Since 04/27/1998
• Missing From Los Angeles, California
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race Hispanic
• Date of Birth 04/04/1955 (68)
• Age 43 years old
• Height and Weight 5'8, 130 pounds
• 
  
• Distinguishing Characteristics Hispanic female. Gray hair, brown eyes. Marquez may use the name Talia Bey. She is of Puerto Rican descent.

Details of Disappearance​

Marquez was last seen in Los Angeles, California during April 1998. She was the president of ClearGreen Inc. prior to her disappearance; ClearGreen followed the teachings of the author/guru Carlos Castaneda and led seminars based off his methods.

Marquez got involved Castaneda's group in the early 1990s and became one of his closest followers. He forced his followers to distance themselves from their families and to use alias names; Marquez's name was Talia Bey. At one point, Marquez called her mother in Puerto Rico to ask for all the family photos that included her; she wanted to destroy them. When her father was dying, he called ClearGreen in hopes of speaking to her one last time, but Marquez refused to talk to him.

Castaneda died of liver cancer on April 27, 1998, but his death was not made public for at least three months. After his death was announced in the news, Marquez's family tried to reach out to her, but they were unable to find her.

Marquez collected Castaneda's ashes after his cremation, and they disappeared along with her. The same month Castaneda died and Marquez disappeared, four of his other female disciples/concubines went missing. They all had been longtime followers of him.

The individuals are Regine "Gina" Thal, who used the alias Florinda Donner-Grau; Maryann Simko, who used the aliases Anna Marie Carter and Taisha Abelar; Dee Ann Jo Ahlvers, who used the alias Kylie Lundahl; and Patricia Parin, who use the alias Nuri Alexander. All of their telephone numbers were reportedly disconnected on the same day. Photographs and additional information for the women are unavailable.

Parin's car was found abandoned at the end of a dirt road leading to the Big Four mine at the base of Panamint Butte at Death Valley National Park in 1998. In 2003, hikers found her partial skeletal remains at the edge of Panamint Dunes, but the bones were not identified until 2006. The other women remain missing. There were rumors that they had all died by suicide and their bodies were in the area where Parin's remains were found.

Marquez's family lives in Puerto Rico and they are still searching for her. Her case remains unsolved.

Investigating Agency​

• Los Angeles Police Department 213-485-2504

Source Information​

• California Attorney General's Office
• Sustained Action: an Investigation Into the Legacy of Carlos Castaneda
• Wikipedia entry for Carlos Castaneda
• The Pahrump Valley Times

Updated 3 times since October 12, 2004. Last updated March 25, 2019; date of disappearance corrected, picture added, details of disappearance updated.

April 4, 2014



Sept 2, 2021