When 18-year-old Yessenia Norman left a state-run transitional home in Arizona to meet a man from a dating app, she told friends she expected a date. Two weeks later, police found her stabbed 27 times in a Tolleson apartment, and a 27-year-old suspect was under arrest in Mississippi.
TLDR
Police in Arizona say 18-year-old Yessenia Norman met a 27-year-old man through a dating app, was lured to his Tolleson apartment, and was stabbed 27 times. The suspect was later arrested in Mississippi and faces first-degree murder and kidnapping charges, with the motive still unclear.
According to reporting from Law & Crime that cites local television coverage, investigators say Norman left a transitional facility overseen by the Arizona Department of Child Safety on January 15th. She reportedly told friends she was going to meet a man she had met on a dating application.
When Norman did not return, a friend reported her missing four days later. Nearly two weeks after she walked out of the facility, officers discovered her body inside a Tolleson apartment on January 28th. The city, west of Phoenix, has become the jurisdiction handling the homicide investigation.
Detectives allege that the apartment where Norman was found had been rented to 27-year-old Randal Basilio Santillan. In the account reported by Law & Crime, investigators say Norman had been stabbed 27 times, and her body had been mutilated and covered with blankets and towels.
From Dating App Meeting to Missing Person Case
Norman, who also went by Sisi, was living in a transitional facility connected to the Arizona Department of Child Safety when she arranged to meet the man from the dating app. The choice to leave that setting highlights an early decision point that investigators and regulators may review later, although there is no public indication of policy violations at this stage.
Friends later told reporters that Norman had explained she was heading to meet someone she knew only through the app. When she did not come back and could not be reached, a friend contacted the police and filed a missing person report four days after her departure.
That gap, between the January 15th meeting and the missing person report, now defines a critical window in the timeline. Authorities have not publicly detailed when they believe Norman was killed within that period, or whether any earlier welfare checks or investigative steps were attempted before her body was found nearly two weeks later.
Discovery in Tolleson Apartment and Alleged Link to Tenant
On January 28th, officers found Norman deceased inside an apartment in Tolleson, a suburb of Phoenix. According to the account reported by Law & Crime, she had suffered 27 stab wounds. Police have not publicly described any signs of forced entry or struggle beyond those injuries.
Investigators say the unit was rented to Santillan, tying him to the scene through tenancy records. That alleged connection, along with what detectives describe as the dating app contact between the two, formed the basis for a warrant accusing him of first-degree murder and kidnapping.
Authorities have not said what, if anything, was recovered from the apartment in terms of digital devices, surveillance footage, or physical evidence beyond the body and the reported blankets and towels. They also have not outlined whether the dating application itself has provided records to law enforcement, or whether those requests are pending.
Interstate Flight and Arrest in Mississippi
By the time Norman’s body was located, investigators say Santillan had left Arizona. According to Law & Crime, police tracked his vehicle using traffic cameras as it moved through New Mexico, Illinois, and Missouri before he eventually stopped in Mississippi.
Officers in Biloxi, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, arrested Santillan after Arizona authorities obtained an arrest warrant. He was booked into the Harrison County Adult Detention Center, where he is being held while Arizona seeks his extradition.
⚠️ DATING APP HOMICIDE / YESSENIA “SISI” NORMAN
Randal Basilio Santillan, 27, has been arrested in Biloxi, Mississippi, in connection with the gruesome murder of 18-year-old Yessenia Norman. Santillan was apprehended on Friday, February 6, after leading police on a cross-country… pic.twitter.com/3E6uS0tbY9
— True Crime Updates (@TrueCrimeUpdat) February 8, 2026
Prosecutors in Arizona say he will face charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping once returned to the state. Court records detailing the full charging document, any probable cause statement, or his initial response to the allegations have not been made public in the reporting cited to date, and there has been no widely reported plea.
Family Grieves as Case Moves Into Courts
Norman’s mother, Jessica Calderon, has spoken publicly in the wake of her daughter’s killing. In an interview referenced by Law & Crime, she described struggling to understand how her daughter ended up in the Tolleson apartment with a man now accused of killing her.
“I cannot imagine,” Calderon told local reporters. “I just cannot imagine. Who would do that to her? I just do not understand.”
A fundraising page set up to assist Calderon and cover funeral costs describes Norman as a “young woman of deep compassion and strength for everyone she knew.” The organizer wrote that Norman loved her friends’ children “endlessly, treating them as if they were family too,” and that she had recently enrolled in community college with plans to “start her adult life.”
These descriptions underscore that Norman’s life extended beyond the limited details contained in police reports: a young woman in state-supervised housing, using a dating app, navigating early adulthood. The question of how she crossed paths with the man now in custody, and what happened between their initial messages and her death, remains central to the case.
Unanswered Questions on Motive and Oversight
Authorities have not publicly alleged a motive for the killing. There has been no description in the available reporting of prior contact between Norman and Santillan beyond the dating app messages that allegedly led to their meeting.
The case also raises, but does not yet answer, questions about oversight in and around the transitional facility where Norman was living. Public reports do not indicate whether staff were aware of her planned meeting, whether there were curfew or sign-out requirements, or whether any internal review has been opened by the Arizona Department of Child Safety.
Because the investigation is ongoing and the criminal case is at an early stage, many details remain sealed or unaddressed in public filings. As Santillan awaits extradition and eventual arraignment in Arizona, court records, motions, and hearings are likely to clarify the timeline, the evidence linking him to the apartment, and any role digital records from the dating app may play.
For now, the procedural posture is clear but incomplete. A young woman is dead, her accused killer is in custody in another state, and prosecutors are preparing to bring a first-degree murder and kidnapping case into an Arizona courtroom. How that case will grapple with the unanswered questions about motive, supervision, and digital encounters that began on a dating app remains to be seen.
