A 16-year-old El Paso girl who played soccer for Jefferson High School has died after losing control of her car and striking a tree near the El Paso Zoo, and her mother is now confronting funeral costs while working two jobs that offer no paid time off. Miranda Cisneros was driving a 2006 Chrysler 300 eastbound on Paisano the night of Sept. 17 when the crash happened in the 4000 block of East Paisano Drive.
According to El Paso Times, the El Paso Police Department issued a news release about the crash but did not reveal the girl's name. Her identity emerged instead through two GoFundMe pages set up to help cover funeral expenses, both of which named her as Miranda Cisneros and included a photo of her in a Jefferson High School soccer uniform, the paper reports. A separate Telemundo 48 El Paso report, after speaking with her family, described her as a minor apasionada por el deporte — passionate about sports — and identified her as the Jefferson High School student who died in the crash on Paisano.
A Mother Left to Carry the Weight Alone
Per the El Paso Times account, Cisneros's mother now faces the loss of her 16-year-old daughter while working two jobs, neither of which offers paid time off, leaving her to confront financial hardship for funeral expenses on top of grief. The two GoFundMe pages that identified Miranda Cisneros were established to help raise money toward those costs.
El Paso ISD formally enrolled Cisneros as a student, per the same account, though a district spokesperson, Ernie Chacon, did not answer questions about which specific school she attended when asked. Chacon did extend condolences to Cisneros's family and loved ones on behalf of the district, the report notes.
Remembered as a Jefferson Soccer Player
Beyond the GoFundMe identification, Telemundo Channel 48-KTDO also identified Cisneros as a Jefferson student after speaking to her family, aligning with the district enrollment record cited in the same reporting. The image circulating from her soccer uniform has become part of how her community is remembering her — a teenager known on the field before her name became known publicly following the crash.
The El Paso Police Department's original release did not name Cisneros, and it remains the case that her identity became public only through the family-run fundraising pages and subsequent local reporting rather than an official police statement naming her.
