For the last nine months, Angeleah Aranda has been on a mission to share her older brother’s story. “We’ve tried to make him known everywhere,” she told Dateline.
Joseph Aranda, a 32-year-old father of four, vanished in July 2025 from Victorville, California.
Angeleah last saw Joseph on the afternoon of Thursday, July 10. She and her fiancé were driving home with some fast food and saw him along the side of Stoddard Wells Road. “I was like, ‘Well, I have this extra food, I’m not going to eat it, I should just give it to him,’” she explained. “We ended up driving back down, and I gave it to him. He said thank you — everything was fine. He was walking back to his car. We went back home.” Joseph’s car was parked nearby at the Emmanuel Temple Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
Joseph didn’t come back to the house he shared with Angeleah and their mom that night, which Angeleah says is out of character. “He has a schedule that he follows, like, to a T,” she said. “So we know all of the routes that he drives and everything.”
Angeleah says later that evening, their mom went down to the church to see if maybe Joseph needed help with his car. “It kept breaking down,” she said. “His car was parked in the church parking lot, and the gates had been locked already.” Angeleah said her mom did not see anyone around the car from outside the gates.
The next morning — Friday, July 11 — Joseph’s mom went back to the parking lot. “When she got there, he wasn’t there. All of the windows were down, and the keys were still in the car,” Angeleah said. “We didn’t know if maybe he took off walking.”
Angeleah says an employee at the church told the family they were going to tow Joseph’s car, so the family drove it back to their house down the street.
“My grandpa’s funeral was the next day. That is a day that Joe would never miss,” Angeleah said. She told Dateline Joseph was sad about their grandfather’s death, but “he was not depressed.”
“Still to this day, I believe that something is wrong because he would never leave,” she said. According to Angeleah, Joseph had never disappeared before.
She also wants people to know who Joseph is, behind the missing poster.
“He loves football. He loves the Raiders,” she said. “He loves his banjo. He carries it with him everywhere that he goes. He has a harmonica that he always was playing.”
Joseph is a loving father of four. “He loved to take them to the parks,” Angeleah said. “They would stay in, watch a movie, eat food.” His children are living with their mother.
Joseph, who grew up in California, was in the laborers’ union. He moved to Arizona for about six months for work, but it didn’t stick. “He came back out here to try to transfer, because all his kids and all of us — his family and everybody he knows — is out here,” Angeleah said. She added that when he vanished, Joseph was “on the waiting list for the labor union in California.”
Joseph Aranda was officially reported missing on Monday, July 14. That morning, the Victorville Police Station of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department posted a press release about the disappearance. “On Monday, July 14, 2025, at approximately 9:06 a.m., deputies responded to the 17000 block of Dante Street for a report of a missing person,” they wrote.
Police confirmed Joseph was last seen by family on Thursday, July 10, 2025. “On Friday, July 11, 2025, Aranda’s family located his vehicle unoccupied in the parking lot of Emmanuel Temple CME on Stoddard Wells Road,” the press release states. It included a description of Joseph, but no other details. Dateline contacted the department and asked for an update on the investigation, but has not yet heard back.
“Police have used helicopters, they’ve gone out on foot, I know they’ve also used dogs,” Angeleah told Dateline about the search efforts. The family itself has used drones and horses. “Anything that we can think of.”
Joseph’s personal belongings are also missing. “Two things that are missing still are his wallet and his phone, and from what the detectives have said, neither have been used since July 10,” Angeleah said. The family also has been unable to locate his banjo or harmonica.
Angeleah described the area around the church where Joseph’s car was located. “They have a little bit of desert behind them,” she said. “There’s, like, big hills of rocks, and behind it is a riverbed. We’ve gone everywhere in the area. We’ve looked in LA, we’ve looked in other states.” They’ve also checked hospitals, jails, and ICE detention centers. “That’s all been ruled out.”
Nine months later, the family is still working to keep Joseph’s story in the public eye. “We started the ‘Find Joseph Aranda’ accounts on all social media, so we could get his picture out there,” Angeleah said.
“I think Joseph would be home, if he could come home,” Angeleah stressed. “There’s just so much that he’s missed and so much that we know he wouldn’t miss.” But she’s not ruling anything out. “He could still be out there, I — I genuinely don’t know,” she said. Angeleah told Dateline that while tips have come in, they are still asking anyone who knows anything to please come forward. “We just — we want him back.”
Joseph Aranda is 5’10” and about 150 lbs.
He has brown hair and brown eyes, a chipped front right tooth, and had a beard when he was last seen.
He has his last name tattooed across the top of his back from shoulder to shoulder and the name “Mary Jane” tattooed on his left forearm.
He was last seen wearing an orange short-sleeved LiUNA (Laborers’ International Union of North America) work shirt, blue jeans, and black Nike Air Forces. He would be 33 years old today.
The Victorville Police Department asks anyone with information to contact the Victorville Police Station at 760-241-2911 or Sheriff’s Dispatch at 760-956-5001.
Callers wishing to remain anonymous are urged to call the We-Tip hotline at 1-800-78CRIME (27463) or leave information on the We-Tip website.
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