‘She was just a beautiful person’
Months later, a mourning mother still seeks answers
Ashley Cerasole’s body was found in late January, just a few weeks before her 30th birthday.
She walked out of the Cary Avenue Adult Home on Dec. 3. Her body was found about seven weeks later, in a swampy, wooded area near Fox Mill Run in Gloucester County.
Investigators — and Cerasole’s mother, Michelle Rocheleau — still don’t know what happened.
“She was just a beautiful person,” Rocheleau said. “She’d always want to sing or pray. She was very outgoing and knew a lot of people.” In the weeks that followed Cerasole’s disappearance, Rocheleau plastered Facebook and Gloucester with photos of her daughter and pleas for information. She followed leads from the community and tried to work with the sheriff ’s office.
The last images of Cerasole were caught on surveillance footage at 3:22 p.m. Dec. 3 on Main Street near Fire Station 1, according to the Gloucester Sheriff ’s Office. The sheriff ’s office
searched with drones and dogs, but ultimately, she was found by the Virginia State Police Dive Team and Bureau of Criminal Investigations.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner says the manner and cause of death are pending. The Gloucester County Sheriff ’s Office says there’s still an active investigation, but there were no updates as of Tuesday afternoon. A sheriff ’s office spokesperson previously said in an email that the sheriff ’s office did not believe Cerasole’s death was suspicious.
“She was dreading turning 30 without having the things that she wanted in her life,” Rocheleau said. “She did not want to be 30 unless she was married and had children.”
Cerasole, a Jamestown High School graduate, was quick to make friends and put others first.
Rocheleau remembered her daughter coming home from daycare determined to learn sign language so she could communicate with a girl in her class.
Cerasole loved writing and singing. After she had a poem published in an anthology as a high school student, and she was hooked. She longed to have her poems published in a book. Rocheleau also discovered her daughter left behind recordings of 121 songs — nine years’ worth of music.
“It got me through some really hard days when I could play her songs — it made me feel like she was with me,” Rocheleau said. “I was always in awe over my daughter. She started singing as soon as she learned to talk.”
Rocheleau is in the process of putting together an illustrated book with the poems, and releasing some of the songs.
“I don’t know how I’m ever going to get past this, but I’m
“I don’t know how I’m ever going to get past this, but I’m trying.”
— Michelle Rocheleau, Ashley Cerasole’s mother
trying,” Rocheleau said. “At least I can honor her with her music and her poetry because that was her dream.”
Cerasole moved into the Cary Avenue Adult Home, an assisted living facility, in September. She had seizures and schizoaffective disorder, which is a combination of schizophrenia symptoms and mood disorder symptoms that may include depression or mania.
Rocheleau said isolation during the pandemic took a toll on Cerasole’s mental health. Rocheleau had guardianship over Cerasole and placed her in the home with the hope that staff would be able to provide better care for her.
“Her disabilities and COVID got in the way of her life, and I had to rethink what was best for her because I was working 12 or 13-hour days,” Rocheleau said.
Rocheleau believes her daughter was headed on a walk with every intent to return, but she wasn’t supposed to be away from the facility without supervision.
Rocheleau hopes to use her story to prevent other families from experiencing the same tragedy. She’s been meeting with legislators hoping to create an alert for adults with disabilities or mental illness who are reported missing.
Virginia has four alerts for missing people — Amber Alerts and Endangered Missing Child Media Alerts, for missing persons under age 18; Senior Alerts, also known as Silver Alerts, for persons 60 or older; and the critically missing adult alert, also known as the Ashanti Alert, for adults believed to have been abducted.
In Cerasole’s case, she needed her medications “just to function” and when she was without them she could experience symptoms such as hallucinations.
Rocheleau’s calls for change are similar to those made last year by a Newport News family.
Andre Grady was 31 years old when he was reported missing. His body was found by a community search party in the crawl space of a vacant house at 826 24th St.
Grady’s family appeared before the Newport News City Council in January 2020 pleading for an alert that would immediately activate a police search when a person with a disability or mental illness is reported missing.