Naples sits in the corner of southwest Florida, a beautiful coastal city with white sand beaches stretching along the Gulf of Mexico. It has numerous outdoor attractions, such as dolphin watching and fishing and high-end shopping.
About 20,000 residents call Naples home. Marie Chantal Delly was one of them. Born in Haiti on March 5, 1976, Marie and her family relocated to Florida in 1984 when she was eight.
According to The Charley Project, “Marie has two daughters and two living sons; a third son died in an accident in 2002.” Her husband is Mathnald Dareus, born on September 30, 1978. The couple lived in apartment 205 at 4120 16th Place, off Green Boulevard in Naples.
Marie worked at the Walmart on Tamiami Trail East for five years, and her coworkers considered her a reliable employee.
On the weekend of May 15, 2010, Marie and her husband got into a heated argument, but it is unclear what caused it. Her family later said the couple fought often, and Dareus sometimes physically abused Marie.
The following Monday, Marie disappeared.
What Happened to Marie Chantal Delly?
On May 17, 2010, Dareus dropped Marie off at Walmart at 8:30 a.m. She worked an 8-hour shift that ended around 4:30 p.m. The store’s surveillance cameras showed Marie walking out of Walmart, and the parking lot cameras captured her walking outside the building. A silver vehicle arrived at the store around the same time and at a toll booth on an area road shortly after. Dareus claimed he did not know who picked his wife up from work. It is unclear what color vehicle he drove in 2010.
No one has seen Marie since she exited Walmart.
On May 19, 2010, Walmart called Dareus regarding Marie’s absence from work. Only then did he report Marie as a missing person to the sheriff’s office. Why he waited so long after her disappearance is a mystery; his whereabouts on May 17, 2010, and May 18, 2010, are unknown.
One of Marie’s coworkers told Collier County Sherrif’s Detective Scott Peterson that Marie requested the next day off to take one of her children to a doctor’s appointment. However, she never showed.
Marie did not have a driver’s license. She had diabetes and did not have her medications when she vanished. There has been no activity on her bank accounts or evidence that Marie fled the country. She was only 34 when she disappeared, and she would unlikely abandon her children.
According to Investigation Discovery, Peterson discovered Marie “had a history of taking off ‘for a couple of days’ whenever she and Dareus experienced ‘marital difficulties.’ She would not tell Dareus where she was going. Marie, however, would always inform her family and children of her whereabouts — which she failed to do this time, the detective noted.”
Peterson also said Dareus gave “inconsistencies with his statement and what our investigation revealed.”
Dareus relocated to Orlando shortly after Marie disappeared. In 2019, a jury found him guilty in the 2015 murder of local tourist corridor worker Cedilien Forestal, 49, at a Hyatt Regency parking garage. Police consider him a person of interest in Marie’s disappearance, but investigators have yet to charge him with the crime. He is serving a life sentence at the Santa Rosa Correctional Institution Annex in Milton, Florida.
In 2015, Marie’s brother, David “Eddy” Delly, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after authorities confiscated about 16,000 narcotic painkillers and antidepressants valued at nearly $200,000 in 2013. Police said they found no evidence suggesting David’s involvement in his sister’s disappearance.
Marie’s case is a classic domestic violence murder. While her husband is the apparent culprit, I’m glad he is serving a life sentence for the other crime. He cannot hurt another woman again.
Anyone with information regarding Marie Chantal Delly’s case should contact Collier County Sheriff’s Office at (239) 252-9300. If you wish to remain anonymous, you may call Crime Stoppers at (800) 780-TIPS (8477).
CCTV image credit: Naples Daily News