SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -- NFL veteran Michael Pennel Jr. had an ongoing relationship with a young woman whose body was found on a property he owned when she went missing, an ESPN investigation found, contradicting Pennel's claim through his attorney that he did not know her.
According to interviews with people close to the victim and police records reviewed by ESPN, Pennel and Carli Franchesca Guzmán Roche frequently spent time together when Pennel was in the Dominican Republic, where he owned a property in the resort area of Puerto Plata until 2025. Her family reported her missing on Sept. 11, 2021, but her body was not found until January 2026, when the new owner was doing excavation work.
Records also show that several people told police early in the 2021 search that Pennel had connections with Guzmán worth investigating. But investigation records show no indication that police interviewed him, despite having visited his property with several of her family members days after she was reported missing.
During that September 2021 visit to Pennel's neighborhood, Guzmán's grandmother and a family attorney told ESPN, a strong odor of decay was obvious, but police told the family the smell probably was from a dead animal, and they did not expand their search to the place from where the smell was emanating -- Pennel's backyard.
Guzmán's body was identified last March. Dominican officials reopened the case at that point and told ESPN that Pennel is a "person of interest" in her death.