Transcription
On this episode of Black Girl Gone, I tell the story of Selena Mae, who was 12 years old when she disappeared from Willingboro, New Jersey, in December 1996. At the time, Selena was 9 months pregnant.
The night that she was last seen, Selena's family said that she had gone to bed, but when they awoke the next morning, Selena was gone. Her father, however, waited over 24 hours before he reported his daughter missing.
When police began to investigate Selena's disappearance, they uncovered disturbing details about her life, her family, and the church they attended. But 27 years after she was last seen, Selena and the baby she was carrying have never been found. What happened to Selena, and who was responsible for her disappearance? This is Selena's story.
If you're familiar with Selena's story, then you know this story is one that's filled with a lot of adults who failed a child. When you hear the details of what we know about Selena's life prior to her disappearance, it will be disturbing, and in some cases, it will make you angry. Not only was she 12 years old, she was 9 months pregnant when she disappeared. So, Selena's story has gotten more attention than most and has been featured on other true crime shows and podcasts. But even with that, the attention has not answered the most important question: What happened to Selena and her baby?
Selena Mae was born in Miami, Florida, in May 1984. Her parents were CJ Mae and Lynn Vitel. CJ said that he and Lynn met in Miami in 1981. He was working as a musician, and she was an exotic dancer. "I guess it was love at first sight," he said in an interview with the Philadelphia Daily News. But their relationship, according to him, was toxic and filled with drugs, alcohol, and reports of domestic violence. Selena was born right in the middle of the chaotic life that was her parents' relationship. Three years after they first met, Lynn gave birth to her.
When Selena was two, CJ and Lynn moved to Palmyra, New Jersey. Even though the move to New Jersey was supposed to be a new start for the young family, the issues in CJ and Lynn's relationship persisted and eventually, after years of being on again, off again, they separated for good in 1989.
After her separation from CJ, Lynn was able to get sober and started working as a housekeeper at a local hotel and eventually became a custodian at a nearby school. According to her family and friends, Lynn and Selena were doing well at the time. CJ had also gotten sober and cleaned up his life. He ended up moving a few miles away to Willingboro, where he moved in with his sister, Serita, who was the pastor of a church called Gospel of Christ Ministries in Mount Holly, New Jersey. CJ became a member of the church and started working as an accountant for the church.
Lynn, however, according to her family, did not like the church that CJ was attending, and so she kept Selena away from him. He said that he tried to see his daughter multiple times, but Lynn always had an excuse. But Lynn's family said that she was just trying to protect Selena from what she said was a cult. "She just didn't like it. She felt it was real cult-like, and she tried to distance herself and Selena from it as much as she could," Lynn's older son told the Daily News. Lynn had done her best to clean up her own life, and it seemed like she and Selena were happy for a while.
But in 1994, Selena's world was turned upside down when she was just 10 years old. Lynn suddenly died from a brain aneurysm. After her mom died, Selena went to live with family friends and she stayed with them for about 3 weeks, and they started the process of trying to adopt her. But CJ said that when he found out Lynn died, he began looking for his daughter, and when he found her, he began the process of getting custody.
The custody battle was bitter. Lynn's family argued that CJ had an abusive past that involved drugs and alcohol abuse. But CJ told the courts that he was clean and had left that life behind him. He was now working at the church and had gotten married. He said that he believed Lynn's family had issues with the fact that he was black and they were white. Nonetheless, the courts eventually sided with CJ and granted him full custody of Selena.
Once she moved in with her father and his wife, Vet, things for Selena changed dramatically. The church her father and stepmom attended, the one her aunt was pastor of, had very strict rules. Selena went from going to public school to being homeschooled by the church, and she was not allowed to watch most of the shows that came on TV. CJ claimed that these rules were because they wanted to encourage her to be a "lady, a quote unquote woman of God," and he said that Selena was happy to be with him. He said when they first reunited, she told him that her mom told her that he didn't want to see her. But he also said that she did have a hard time adjusting.
Her living situation also changed a lot. The home her father lived in was a communal home for people that attended the church. But at the time, aside from her father and stepmom and her half-sister who also lived there, her aunt Serita, her husband, and their son lived there also. But Selena's maternal family said that after she moved with CJ, they began seeing and hearing from her less and less. Her aunt said that in the 2 and a half years after she went to live with her father, she only spoke to Selena three times. CJ, however, told the Daily News that it was Selena's decision not to have contact with her mom's family.
Selena's life had changed a lot at such a young age. She had already been through a lot of hard transitions, and like I said, her father himself acknowledged that she was having a hard time adjusting to her new life. Based on what he said about the rules that Selena was living under, it seemed like she was also under strict supervision. She was being homeschooled, and she spent most of her time at church or at home.
But when Selena was just 11 years old, in March 1996, she got pregnant. CJ claimed he had no idea how his daughter ended up pregnant, but when he found out, he said he was disappointed. "I was hurt. I was disappointed. The first thing I asked her was, 'Who was the father?' and she just clammed up," CJ told the Daily News. CJ said that eventually, she told her obstetrician that the father was some 16-year-old boy who didn't attend the church he went to, but he said she never told him the name of the father.
Now, Selena's pregnancy wasn't a secret. Everybody in her church knew, and in a church as strict as the one described, you can imagine the whispers and the things that were said directly to Selena. But despite being only 11 years old, she was attending her doctor's appointments regularly and taking her prenatal vitamins while her pregnancy progressed. However, according to reporting, her family was not helping her. Even as she moved closer to her due date, they had not bought anything for the baby and refused to buy Selena clothes that would fit over her growing belly. I mean, this situation was far from normal because there's nothing normal about an 11-year-old being pregnant.
CJ said that they tried to find out the identity of the father, but no matter how many times she was asked, he said Selena refused to tell anyone. CJ said that he continued to press Selena about the identity of the father, and he said that Selena became angry when he told her that he could get a paternity test to find out. It's hard to imagine what was going on in Selena's young mind at the time. The only account we have comes from her father and the people around her, but there's no way to know exactly how this child felt or if she truly understood what was happening to her. It's hard to understand how, if she was living in such a strict environment, living a really sheltered life, how at 11, this was able to happen in the first place.
But Selena would never give birth to her baby because, before she could, she disappeared.
On Sunday, December 15th, 1996, Selena was 9 months pregnant at the time, and her family spent the day at church as they normally did. They would usually attend morning and evening services at the church, but services were canceled that evening, and so Selena and her family went home and had dinner. After dinner, her family said that Selena headed to bed after putting her plate in the sink. CJ said she kissed him goodnight and went up to bed. But before she headed to her bedroom, which was located on the second floor, her family said that the last thing she said to them was "thanks for everything." They said Selena went to her room, and it was the last time that anyone ever saw her again.
The next morning, December 16th, 1996, Selena's stepmom, Vet, woke up and started cooking breakfast. Selena's half-sister, Nori, who was 4 years old at the time, recounting that morning in later interviews, said that her mom told her to go upstairs and wake Selena for breakfast. Her sister said that she went to Selena's room and opened the door to tell Selena to come down, and then she went back downstairs. But when Selena didn't come down, Vet told Nori to go back upstairs and get her. But when she went back to Selena's room and called her again, Selena didn't get up. Nori went into the bedroom and pulled back the blanket on Selena's bed, and that's when she found pillows that had been lined up to make it look like someone was in the bed. Nori went back downstairs to tell her mom that Selena was gone.
After being told that Selena was not in her room or anywhere else in the house, Vet called CJ, who was in Mount Holly at the church. She asked him if Selena was with him, but he told her that she wasn't. When Selena's family discovered her missing, it was the morning of December 16th, but instead of calling the police immediately, they waited. And CJ did not contact the police until over 24 hours after Selena was discovered missing, on December 17th. That day, CJ went into the local police station in Willingboro to report his daughter missing. But when he reported Selena missing, initially, he failed to mention at the time that she was 9 months pregnant and weeks away from giving birth.
By the time the police received the information that Selena was missing for 24 hours had gone by, and so the investigation into what happened to her started already behind, with critical hours already being lost. But once Selena was finally reported missing and the investigation finally began, it uncovered dark secrets that people involved hoped never came to light.
On December 15th, 1996, 12-year-old Selena Mae, who was 9 months pregnant at the time, went to bed. And when her family woke up the next morning, Selena was gone. 24 hours later, they finally reported her missing, and the investigation into her life and her disappearance began. When CJ Mae walked into the Willingboro police station to report his daughter missing, no one had seen her since around 11:00 p.m. on December 15th. It had been over 24 hours since she was last seen, and despite the fact that she was 9 months pregnant and 12 years old, the description of what was found in Selena's room, the pillows under the bed, made it seem like this was simply a runaway. And so, police did not immediately start investigating Selena's disappearance. Also, a reminder, CJ did not initially disclose the fact that Selena was pregnant, and so police were not aware of that until later on. And so, they decided to wait until after the holidays to see if Selena turned up. But when the holidays came and went, and Selena did not come home or contact anyone, the police finally began to look into her disappearance.
Once police learned that Selena was also pregnant, they started to turn the heat up on their investigation. They searched the area around where she lived and checked local hospitals for any sign of her. Now, although there was an assumption based on what CJ had told them that she had left on her own, he told them that she had left all of her personal belongings behind, including her prenatal vitamins, her favorite purse, and her CD player. She did have a red jacket missing, and so that gave credence to the theory that she had left willingly. But CJ told police that he believed his daughter had run away because she was afraid of them finding out the identity of her child's father. He told her that they would be able to do a DNA test when the baby was born, and so he told police that he thought she was afraid that they would find out the truth, and so she left.
When Selena's maternal family found out that she was missing, they immediately suspected CJ and his family had something to do with it. They told local papers that the Maes were not telling the whole truth. Police eventually set up a tip line, and her mother's family in Florida opened a PO Box for people to send information to. But in the weeks following Selena's disappearance, there was still no sign of her. The local media in South Jersey and Philadelphia began picking up the story after police reached out to the media for help. But even with the growing attention, very few leads came in about Selena's disappearance. However, more and more questions did start to arise about Selena's family and the church that they were a part of.
First, police said that the family was not very cooperative and that they refused to allow them to do a search of the home where they all lived. They also refused to let them search the church in Mount Holly. Police said that normally, families were beating down their door demanding updates, but Selena's family, the police said, they had to ask them to come in, something that CJ denied. He said the police were biased against him and his church. But according to the police, it took them over a month to speak to all of Selena's family that lived with her and attended the same church as she did. They had tried to get a search warrant for the home, but they were ultimately denied by a judge. Police began to theorize that perhaps the family was hiding Selena to protect the identity of the baby's father.
When they spoke to former members of the church Selena's family attended, they were told the church was like a cult, and Serita, the aunt and pastor of the church, ruled with a "quote unquote Iron Fist," and she controlled everything and everyone in the congregation. CJ, however, said that the former members were just bitter and insisted that he and his family were cooperating with the investigation. He said that race was an issue when it came to the police. Now, CJ said he believed that perhaps Selena's mom's family had taken her. He said that they wanted her back and had the resources to make it happen, but they didn't take Selena.
And as the weeks turned to months, it was becoming harder and harder to find credible information about Selena's disappearance. In the months that followed, rumors and speculation began to spread throughout the surrounding community. There were multiple alleged sightings of Selena, but none of them were credible. A $5,000 reward was offered for information in hopes it would compel people to come forward, but it didn't. And police tried to identify the father of Selena's child but were never able to do so.
One of the persistent rumors that was spreading was that CJ had raped his daughter and fathered her child. But CJ denied the heinous accusations and said his proof was that he had a vasectomy years before Selena became pregnant. Nonetheless, CJ, Serita, and the rest of the adults in Selena's life were under a cloud of suspicion. Between the accusations of a cult-like church, a controlling pastor, and a pregnant 12-year-old who had disappeared, many were convinced that they knew more than they were saying.
Her aunt Serita, however, also didn't help lift that suspicion. On several occasions, Serita painted a picture of Selena as a manipulative child who essentially deserved the things that happened to her. During one of her Sunday sermons, she said that Selena was "just so much a woman as she was a girl." Even though she was 12, she also said that Selena could not have been raped or molested because she waited four months to say that she was pregnant, and if she had been raped, she would have said something right away. She said that Selena had run away out of shame, just like she had hidden her pregnancy out of shame. She was talking about a child, her own niece, and she was just so cold, publicly condemning her niece and preaching about how she was a liar, never once considering what happened to this child. That tells you a lot about her and the people around her.
Investigators continued to search for Selena, but as time went on, they were becoming more and more frustrated by the lack of information. Selena's sister, Nori, said that after she disappeared, even though she was young, she doesn't remember anyone in her family talking much about Selena. She remembered the media trying to reach out and speak to different members of the family, but her aunt Serita would not allow them to speak to the media. She said she did remember when she was about 8 years old asking someone about Selena and was told that she wasn't there because she "slept around and got pregnant and then ran away." This reoccurring theme of a lack of concern from Selena's family in Willingboro is a reoccurring theme. But CJ repeatedly denied the accusations, but it's hard to ignore them.
In the months after Selena's disappearance, her family on both sides did not agree about much, but the one thing they did both believe was that Selena was alive somewhere. Although both sides accused the other of being involved, they did think that she was still out there. Detectives never found any signs of foul play, and so they also held on to the possibility that Selena was still alive. They just had no idea where she had gone. At one point, they did say in an interview that they did not believe that she was still in the South Jersey area.
Selena's story eventually captured national headlines, and she was even featured on America's Most Wanted. Leads came in from all over the country, but none of them helped investigators locate any valuable information. At the one-year anniversary of her disappearance, police were still no closer to finding Selena. But when one of her family members was arrested for the rape of two teenage girls, the mystery of Selena's disappearance deepened.
January 1998, Shawn Smith, Selena's cousin and the son of her aunt and pastor Serita, was arrested and charged with the rape of two teenage girls, ages 13 and 16, who were members of his mother's church. When CJ was first asked about Shawn, who had lived with him prior to these charges, he denied the possibility that Shawn had impregnated Selena, but also acknowledged that Shawn had gotten a couple of girls at the church pregnant. When Selena's maternal family heard about the arrest, they were convinced that Shawn had done the same thing to her. Apparently, rumors had been swirling around Shawn since Selena went missing, and one of those rumors had come from a friend of Selena's who had also attended the church. She was a few years older than Selena and had claimed that she had confided in her that her cousin Shawn was the one who got her pregnant. The friend said that she never said anything to anybody, but she said that eventually, Selena had told her family that it was Shawn. He denied the allegations after his arrest. People in the community, along with Selena's other family, believed that Shawn was the person who impregnated Selena. The problem was, there was no way to prove it, and police never officially commented on whether or not they think Shawn is connected to Selena's pregnancy or her disappearance.
In the years that followed Shawn's arrest, the rumors continued. Police kept their investigation open and continued to search for any information, but eventually, the leads completely dried up, and Selena's case went cold. Over the years, there have been age-progressed photos of what Selena looks like now, but the mystery about what happened to her remains.
In 2017, CJ Mae died at the age of 65. A year later, his sister Serita also died at 65, and Shawn, her son, died in 2020 at the age of 46. The three people that perhaps had the most information about Selena's disappearance are all gone, and with them, any information that they may have had about what really happened to Selena.
It's now been almost 27 years since Selena Mae disappeared from her home. There are many theories about what may have happened to her, but without the ability to find the real truth, there is no way to know what actually happened. Selena's story is about a child whose life from the beginning was challenging to say the least, and just when her mom was able to give her some stability, she died, and Selena's life was never ever the same. The adults in Selena's life when she disappeared failed her. Period. She should have been protected, and she wasn't. They claimed they did the things they did to keep her out of harm's way, but in the end, none of those things mattered when Selena really needed them.
I don't know what happened to Selena, but there is always the possibility that she is still alive, and there are people out there that are still looking for her and the baby that she was carrying.
Selena Mae was last seen on December 15th, 1996, in Willingboro, New Jersey. She was 12 years old and 9 months pregnant at the time. If you have any information about her disappearance, please contact the Willingboro Police Department. Thank you for listening to this week's episode. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and [Music] Threads.