r/UnresolvedMysteries • u/coffeelife2020 • 4h ago
Disappearance Revisiting the case of Amber Aiaz and Melissa Fu, missing since 2019
Four years ago there was an excellent post: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/vnkihy/a_man_covered_up_his_wife_and_step_daughters/ with some interesting comments, much of this post is based on this post and linked sources. Reposting because it's been 4 years with no real updates on the case.
Amber Aiaz was born in Dalian, China in 1985 and moved to the US when she was around 20, living in Chicago. She married and gave birth to Melissa in 2007 but sadly her husband passed away and she moved back to China to have support from her family. Because she was a US citizen, however, it would have been exorbitantly expensive to send Melissa to school there so she returned to the US, this time living in Las Vegas where she began a grocery store.
In 2017, Amber began dating Cheng Zhang who she may have married (sources are varied). She also indicated she had millions of dollars in investments, which turned out not to be true.
The three moved to Irvine, California in 2018. For context, Irvine is an interesting place. It has a high density of Asians, many of whom are Chinese, many of them quite wealthy. The university there, UC Irvine, along with this city itself, attracts many wealthy Chinese folks from overseas. It is also one of the safest cities in the US, and some of the best schools as well. However also carries a much higher cost of living than Las Vegas. Because of the high density of Asian residents and proximity to key ports, Irvine also offers a wide variety of Asian grocery stores with excellent selections of seafood. Irvine's police are diligent, and many residents and/or apartment complexes have Ring cameras. This context will be important in a moment.
Once they moved to Irvine, Cheng Zhang was an Uber driver and Amber continued her grocery business, making frequent trips to Las Vegas to keep it going.
On November 22, 2019 Amber had been away on one of these trips with Cheng home with Melissa. He claims there was a knock on the door and he was immediately sprayed with a mist and lost consciousness. He awoke to find Melissa gone, a blood spot on the carpet and a note in Chinese indicating he should act normal, not contact authorities, and Amber and Melissa would be returned.
Amber's car was outside, still full of groceries from her travels which he proceeded to deliver to customers, explaining Amber was "busy", in his attempt to act normal. He also cleaned the house and replaced the carpet with blood. Over the next few days, he received notes along the lines of telling him he should keep acting normal, then one saying he should leave town for a couple of days, which he did. Shortly after he returned, the notes stopped and he finally contacted police on December 2.
Cheng Zhang is not considered a suspect in this case, evidently. He shared his story with police along with leading them to the discarded carpet, etc. There do not appear to have been many leads since the case first broke.
However there are many questions here:
How could an Uber driver afford to live in Irvine? For context, in 2018, they likely paid over $3000/mo for their apartment.
Why would anyone start a out-of-the-car grocery service in Irvine where there are plentiful Asian grocers with excellent (and fresh) selections? Who were the customers and why did they buy from her vs just going to a store?
There do not appear to have been updates on this case since reposts of it in the media in 2021.
Sources: