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"We've flown most of these fields, as far as the eye can see in this direction, all the way up to the foothills on the west side as well," said San Jose Sheriff Sgt. Brett Moore.
Working off her scent, police dogs have traced Sierra's half mile long walk to her bus stop, but the trail goes cold beyond her driveway, suggesting she was picked up.
The ground and air search is finished in Morgan Hill for now, unless new leads develop.
Detectives said they are turning their attention to interviews with Sierra's friends.
The Santa Clara Sheriff's Office is asking for the public's help in locating a missing Morgan Hill teenager who was last seen leaving for school Friday morning.
Investigators in Santa Clara County are going door-to-door of sexual predators looking for a missing girl.
15-year-old Sierra LaMar left her Morgan Hill home last Friday morning and didn't show up for school. There are 55 registered sex offenders in the Morgan Hill zip code alone under Megan's Law. The sexual assault unit is talking to those people as well as others in South San Jose to make sure that no one on that list is a possible suspect in Sierra's disappearance.
Cardoza said that while investigators have found no signs of foul play, they have also not seen signs that are common in a runaway situation.
According to Cardoza, there have been no fights at home or any sign that Lamar was unhappy.
“Everything was status quo at home,” he said.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, which led the weekend search efforts for 15-year-old Sierra Lamar, on Monday morning confirmed the girl's cell found was discovered Saturday shortly before 7 p.m. about three-quarters of a mile from her house at Dougherty and Palm avenues, according to Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
Sierra's phone was located at the northeast corner of Scheller Avenue and Santa Teresa Boulevard.
According to the same registry, Sierra's father, Steve Lamar, who lives in Fremont, is himself a registered sex offender who was convicted of charges of lewd acts with a child under 14 years old.
Sheriff's officials have said, however, that Steve Lamar was not considered a suspect in the case.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department said it will search the Morgan Hill home of a missing teenager Tuesday.
Investigators listed the search as a new detail in their search for Sierra Lamar, who has not been seen since leaving for school last Friday.
Sheriff's investigators said they will also conduct more interviews with Sierra's friends. They said the interviews on Monday did not reveal any useful information.
"She's always been a happy person who wears her emotions on her sleeve," said J*****, 17. "If she was upset, she would cry. So, she wouldn't want to run away and just be by herself. If she just wanted to run away from Morgan Hill, she would have come here to Fremont and told her friends here or contacted her dad."
“(Steve LaMar) has been very cooperative and forthcoming with any and all information requested from him,” Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Lt. Troy Smith said. “We are still looking into the case at this time and there has not yet been any indication that a crime has occurred.”
SHERIFF LAURIE SMITH, SANTA CLARA COUNTY (via telephone): Our investigation is continuing. Our mission is to return Sierra home safely. There`s a lot of investigation going on. She has Twitter accounts. We have her cell phone. We are releasing information as we get it, so whatever you have is everything that we can release. We need the public`s help.
COSBY: Sheriff, give us a sense of the timeframe. We just heard from Henry Lee. Give us the sense of what you know. Mom last sees her what time, any eyewitnesses?
SMITH: Mother sees her about 6:00 o`clock in the morning on Friday. We know that she was at her computer at 6:30, which is pretty standard because she generally goes to her bus stop about 7:10. After 6:30, when we know she`s on her computer, we have nothing else after that. We were contacted by the parents when she didn`t return home that night and hadn`t been in school.
COSBY: And Sheriff, my understanding -- the mother sees her that morning, correct, so the mother is the last one to see her?
SMITH: That`s correct.
COSBY: And was there anything unusual that the mother said, anything, you know, about her behavior, anything interesting in the neighborhood? Did the mother see anything that just seemed out of the norm?
SMITH: No, nothing at all. It was interesting from the beginning because we had a report of a missing person, and there was no evidence of foul play, but also, there was no information suggesting that she would run away. So we treated it very seriously from the beginning and allocated a lot of resources to the investigation.
Community members held a candlelight vigil for missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra Lamar Tuesday night as authorities continued to search for her.
At Friday's vigil, friends of Sierra plan to wear the same kind of red Converse shoes the missing teen was known for wearing.
*advertiser censored***** said students have not given up hope of finding Sierra, but that they were growing more concerned now that she has been missing for so long.
"We really believe she got taken, *advertiser censored***** said. And as hard as it is to say and as hard as it is to admit, I feel like that's the reality of it."
The Polly Klaas Foundation is now joining the family to help find 15-year-old Sierra LaMar of Morgan Hill, who disappeared last Friday. It's a loss being felt by the entire community.
Sierra's mother has requested the help of Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter Polly was kidnapped and killed in Petaluma in 1994. He now heads the KlaasKids Foundation.
"We are prepared to offer everything, from support and counseling to full pledged search recovery efforts," said Klaas. "We will be sending our search director to Morgan Hill to establish a physical presence, a search center."
My name is Steve LaMar. My daughter Sierra has been missing since last Friday, March 16th. I am releasing this statement to address a recent report that I am a registered sex offender. This report is true. I anticipated that this unfortunate piece of my background might surface in the media. I immediately disclosed this history to the police on the very first day of the investigation into my daughter’s disappearance, in the interests of openness, truthfulness, and cooperation.
I understand the stigma associated with this in my background, and I assure everyone it is not connected in any way to my daughter’s disappearance. I ask that you please not shift the focus away from the investigation and from finding Sierra. I also ask that you please not let my past shape your opinion of Sierra or anyone in our family.
Please understand, I am a dad, and I want nothing more than to find my missing daughter.
My family is working closely as a team with law enforcement, and we will do so until we can conclude the investigation.
We want to thank law enforcement, the media, and the community for all of the help and support they have given so far.
Sierra's sister, Danielle LaMar, 21, said despite her father's conviction and her parents' divorce, the family of four remains tight-knit. "I've always been really close with my dad," she said.
The night before Sierra disappeared, Danielle LaMar left Sacramento State for spring break and joined her father at his Fremont townhouse. On their way back from dinner, Sierra, a 5-foot-2-inch brunette, called. They put her on speakerphone.
"She was talking about how she wanted to get her hair done the next time she went to Fremont. She wanted to add some blond streaks," Danielle LaMar said. "She was very excited about one of her school assignments, telling me about her research paper. Bringing up her grades made her happy."
LaMar’s mother Marlene and her boyfriend Rick Gardiner, as well as the teen’s father Steve LaMar have all been ruled out as suspects, according to Smith.
“The entire family has fully cooperated with our agency,” Smith said. “All of the family (mother, father, Gardiner) have alibis and can be accounted for at the time Sierra went missing.”
Marlene LaMar became worried after her daughter didn’t return home from school Friday.
“I was worried when I came home and she wasn’t here,” Marlene LaMar told ABC News. ”That’s when my adrenaline, that fear kicked in. That’s when a mother has that instinct that something isn’t quite right here.”
They reached out to the teen’s friends, but they grew more concerned when one friend said Sierra wasn’t in class earlier that day. They decided to contact authorities around 5 p.m. Friday, after her high school sent them an e-mail saying she didn’t show up for school at all that day.
Court documents show that LaMar was originally charged with 12 felony counts of committing lewd or lascivious acts with three children under 14 in March 2009. He pleaded guilty to one count and was sentenced in September 2009 to a year in county jail.
None of the three children was his daughter, documents show.
Sheriff Laurie Smith says her office is working with several known facts about Sierra's sudden disappearance Friday morning. The 15-year-old sent out a tweet from her home computer at 6:29 that morning. It was learned Thursday that she sent a text from her cell phone to a friend at 7:11 a.m. "She usually leaves for school between 7:10 and 7:15, so we don't know where her physical location was at the time. She texted a friend, a friend answered, and no further," Smith said.
"It was her clothing. It was things that she would have kept with her and it was school books. We believe she was on her way to school. It shouldn't have been where it was. It definitely elevates our concerns," said Sheriff Laurie Smith of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department.
~~
They said she was in good spirits and don't believe she would have ran away.
"We really don't believe so. She's a good kid," Smith said. "She's probably your typical 15-year-old, but there's no indication that this was a runaway. You don't take your school books."
Midsi Sanchez, 19, is a kidnap survivor.
In August 2000, when she was 8, she was abducted by Curtis Dean Anderson on her way home from school in Vallejo. Anderson was the same deviant who kidnapped and killed 7-year-old Xiana Fairchild, also of Vallejo.
~~
At the first vigil, she introduced herself to the LaMars, told them to stay strong, and asked permission to tell her story to the crowd that had gathered at a Morgan Hill church.
Sierra's mother, Marlene LaMar, thanked her: "You made me feel so much better."
Also Thursday, students at Sierra's Ann Sobrato High School set up a reward fund for information leading to her discovery, said Superintendent Wesley Smith. The schools in the Morgan Hill Unified School District will post donation boxes at their front offices, with the money being collected Thursday.
Checks, which can be dropped off or mailed to the schools, should be made payable to Ann Sobrato High School ASB. If Sierra is found before next week, officials will donate the money to charities that assist in finding missing people.
Some of the content on the accounts contains profanity, references to marijuana and alcohol use and carnally suggestive photos and comments. Cardoza said her parents “knew she was an avid ‘Facebooker’ and ‘tweeter’,” but did not specify whether or not they closely monitored the accounts.
The case is now receiving national attention, with more than 150 tips called in to the Sheriff's Office, dozens of students and possible associates interviewed and thousands of people following the case's every update through social media. Even the FBI is assisting. In the past few days, about 30 detectives have followed up on more than a half-dozen reports of suspicious vehicles in the Morgan Hill area. Women, including teenagers, have reported men slowing down and asking them if they wanted to get in their cars -- but none so far has proved to be related to Sierra's case.
V****** Yanez of Gilroy High School, K*** Redmond of Santa Teresa High School and M***** Ross of Oak Grove High School have cheered with LaMar since September. They attended the Tuesday night vigil wearing T-shirts with pictures of LaMar printed on the front with “MISSING” in bold lettering.
LaMar joined the team in September and was connected to the squad by a friend of hers just before she moved to Morgan Hill. A cheerleader at Washington High School before transferring to Sobrato, she is a “flier,” or the teammate at the top of a stunt who is lifted or thrown in the air, on the Black Diamond team, the teens said.
Aside from being talented at cheer, Ross said the team knows LaMar as a happy teenager, and Yanez said she is “always singing.”
“She would sing anything that was on the radio – anything that would make her happy and smile,” Yanez said.
Search and rescue dogs were brought in as the FBI combed through neighbors' yards. They seemed focused on one yard adjacent to the LaMar home.
Authorities spent about an hour and a half inside but gave no indication if anything related to the case was found.
They spent hours searching neighbors backyards, even bringing in canines to sniff for clues. They spent most of the night searching a large property right next door to the missing 15-year-old girl's home.
~~
The cul-de-sac isn't the only area, investigators targeted. Less than a quarter mile away on Scheller Avenue, they also targeted a vacant foreclosed home. Detectives even hauled away an evidence kit from the home.
KTVU spotted numerous FBI agents in the neighborhood going to various properties near her home. There were dozens of sheriff's cars in the neighborhood and just before 7 p.m. as officers and FBI agents started going into the backyards of homes.
Others went into her home. some carrying black cases which appeared to be evidence kits.
A San Jose Sharks jersey similar to the one a missing Morgan Hill teen was wearing the morning she disappeared was among the items in a bag found discarded in field near her home, authorities confirmed on Friday.
Officials said Friday that the 15-year-old appears to be wearing the jersey in a photo she tweeted on the morning she disappeared. But they say the photo doesnt show enough of the shirt to be sure its the one in the purse.
But because Sierra's tweet only captured a small portion of the shirt, investigators can't be sure it was the same shirt located inside Sierra's Juicy-brand bag found at 1 p.m. Sunday, according to Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
"Whether it's the same we don't know, but it's similar," Cardoza said.
The FBI is now deeply involved in the search for the missing teen from Santa Clara County who disappeared one week ago Friday.
The FBI is retracing Sierra LaMar's every move before her disappearance. Agents set up a roadblock Friday morning at the exact intersection in Morgan Hill where the 15-year-old is believed to have vanished.
Agents also interviewed workers near where Sierra's purse and clothing were discovered Sunday, less than two miles from her rural Morgan Hill home.
The FBI has now wrapped up an initial search of the home where missing teenager Sierra Lamar lived with her mother.
KRON 4's J.R. Stone reports agents first took photos of the exterior of the family home. Later an FBI mobile crime lab pulled up to the home and investigators went inside to look for more evidence of what happened to Sierra. The focus on the house comes a week to the day after Sierra was last seen heading for her school bus stop.
Sierra's mother, Marlene Lamar, tells Will that she believes that the Sharks shirt found inside her daughter's purse was the one she wore that morning to go to school. Marlene also tells Will that her daughter snapped a photo of herself on her laptop that morning that strengthens her belief Sierra was wearing that shirt when she left home. Marlene says this information gives her a bit of hope.
"I still have hope, I'm still worried as each day progresses. The fact it was in a different location gives me some hope she's fighting still," Lamar said. "I get worried because it's freezing, freezing cold out and I get worried about her getting cold and I get worried about her as far as needing her inhalers."
MARLENE LAMAR, SIERRA`S MOTHER (via telephone): Hello?
GRACE: I`m here, Ms. LaMar. Thank you for being with us.
LAMAR: Thank you for having me so we can get the word out and try to find my baby.
GRACE: Ms. LaMar, my mom would leave every morning before we went to school. We would wake up, she would have breakfast all laid out, and she expected us to eat and go to school. Everything was laid out for us.
You got up and you went to work that morning around 6:00 AM, is that correct?
LAMAR: That`s correct. And I heard something...
GRACE: What...
LAMAR: I was listening to stuff in the background about her walking at the bus stop before dawn. But actually, she started for the bus stop at 7:15, and it was bright out. I mean, it`s well lit, so I want to make sure...
GRACE: Good to know.
LAMAR: ... that`s (INAUDIBLE) clear.
GRACE: Good to know. You know what? That actually changes things, Ms. LaMar. The fact that it was broad daylight when she was outside changes the scenario of what may have happened.
Here`s my big question right there. Ms. LaMar, do you know what she was wearing that morning? Can you recall what she had on?
LAMAR: No, because she was still wearing her pajamas, you know, before I left for work.
GRACE: OK. Have police told you what the clothes were in her pocketbook?
LAMAR: No. No.
GRACE: OK. I`m just wondering if they were the clothes that she had on when she left that morning? Were they clothes she was going to change into after school?
LAMAR: I did not see what she was wearing before she left for school that morning.
Today Washington and other students at Ann Sobrato High School started collecting donations and selling these T-shirts with Lamar's face on them.
Not only do the students not want attention to fade as the days pass, they also want to get a reward together for any information that would bring Lamar back home.
The heightened search efforts will cover a 12-mile radius from Palm and Dougherty avenues in north Morgan Hill, the site of the school bus stop that LaMar usually walks to on her way to Sobrato High School. The search will include about 60 members of search and rescue teams from the Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office and other law enforcement agencies, according to Sgt. Jose Cardoza of the sheriffs office.
Dozens of law enforcement officials combed an area of Morgan Hill Saturday as the search for missing 15-year-old Sierra LaMar continues.
Santa Clara County Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Jose Cardoza said with deputies from nearby counties called in to help, about 90 personnel and several search dogs combed a 12-mile radius of the community.
Search teams and volunteers hit the streets Saturday in the largest effort to find missing teen Sierra LaMar.
Saturday's search is the largest so far. More than 90 professional search and rescue members from four counties looked for Sierra, within a 12-mile radius of her home. They checked urban and rural areas, looking for clues, evidence, anything that might help.
Sgt. Jose Cardoza of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office said: "We're still out here, anything can happen. We could get a lead overnight, in the next 24 hours, a good tip may change everything."
Law enforcement officials looking for evidence in the case of a missing Morgan Hill girl came up empty during a search Saturday.
Santa County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Jose Cardoza says teams of Santa Clara County and deputies from nearby counties found no evidence or what he termed "items of interest" as the search for 15-year-old Sierra Lamar continues.
The fourth and largest search involving 60 members of search and rescue teams and other law enforcement agencies concluded Saturday with no new evidence. The extended search covered a 12 mile radius from Palm and Dougherty avenues in north Morgan Hill and included four K-9 dogs. The FBI joined the search last week.
It's a day to day operation, said Cardoza.
Detectives worked inside the office today to catch up on documenting and updating interviews. Then, said Cardoza, they will come up with a game plan for the next steps of the investigation.
On Sunday Santa Clara deputies took the day off from searching and instead sifted through evidence and past interviews for clues looking for 15 year old Sierra Lamar.
Meanwhile businesses all over town have signs plastered everywhere looking for Sierra. You can see them in just about every door you walk in. "As far as you know the town, I know we're doing everything we can," said Andrew Suarez.
Hundreds of fliers have been passed out by friends and family of Sierra. Hoping to bring her home. "We're all pretty tight, you know one big family. All of the businesses around here.
The KlaasKids Foundation will launch volunteer searches for missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar on Tuesday, the nonprofit announced today.
LaMar's mother, Marlene LaMar, has asked the organization, which is dedicated to assisting the families of missing children, to organize the community volunteer search, KlaasKids officials said.
Community members gathered for another vigil for missing South Bay teen Sierra LaMar on Sunday.
The vigil at the Crossroad Christian Center was the fourth held in honor of Sierra since she disappeared. Organizers say the gatherings are important to maintain public awareness and keep the focus Sierra.
Friends made more than 500 pink and black ribbons to pass out at the vigil. Pink and black zebra stripe is one of Sierra's favorite things.
Santa Cruz County deputies on Sunday investigated a possible sighting of Sierra LaMar, after a witness called 911 to report seeing a teen hitchhiking on Holohan Road that looked like the missing 15-year-old Morgan Hill girl, authorities said.
The witness reported that the girl had backpacks with her and was near the intersection of East Lake Avenue when she got into a black truck, sheriff's Lt. Bob Pursley said.
On Saturday, about 90 people, along with search dogs, spent the day combing a 12-mile area of Morgan Hill near her mother's home. Investigators said they found nothing of substance.
~~
Her father Steve LaMar did his own physical search of canyons in Morgan Hill over the weekend, but found nothing. "I'm just desperate," Steve LaMar said.
Saturday was the largest search effort since the former Fremont resident went missing more than a week ago. The search has included possible "crime scene areas" along Highway 152 on the approaches to Pacheco Pass and Hecker Pass.
Santa Clara County Sheriff Sgt. Jose Cardoza on Monday said there were no real updates to Sierra's case. But he did note investigators were aware of the many reported tips regarding other attempted abductions and possible sightings of Sierra around the Bay Area. So far, all of them have been unfounded, Cardoza said.
As of Monday, the sheriffs offices plan for the ongoing investigation is to re-canvass areas that have already been searched including the neighborhoods and fields surrounding the LaMar home in north Morgan Hill and to re-interview some of Sierras classmates and former classmates, according to sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
More than 40 local sheriffs deputies have been assigned to the case not including those assisting from the FBI and surrounding counties, Cardoza said.
The Polly Klaas Foundation is helping find the Morgan Hill teen by inundating the immediate area and the state with fliers and publicity efforts about the case, according to response department director Cindy Rudometkin.
After last weekend's heightened efforts to locate the 15-year-old yielded no significant leads, Sgt. Jose Cardoza with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office said the extra help from the foundation is appreciated.
They did advise us theyre going to be coordinating search efforts, which is good, Cardoza said. Its an extra resource for our staff, its an extra set of eyes and ears.
San Jose police are looking for stun gun-wielding man who attempted to kidnap a teenage girl Friday in broad daylight in the Willow Glen neighborhood.
Police said a 16-year-old girl was approached by a man who suddenly attacked her with a stun gun-type weapon and attempted to drag her into his car.
Hundreds of volunteers showed up in Morgan Hill Tuesday to lend a hand in the ongoing search for 15-year-old Sierra LaMar, who went missing a week and a half ago.
The KlaasKids Foundation, an organization that provides search-and-rescue services for families of missing people, was on hand at Burnett Elementary School to manage the search.
By 9 a.m., more than 200 people had registered to help look for Sierra and provide administrative support for the effort, KlaasKids founder Mark Klaas said.
Marc Klaas was expecting a few dozen people at most to turn out to help his Klaas Kids Foundation search for missing Morgan Hill teenager Sierra LaMar. By 9 a.m. Tuesday there were 300 people standing in line; ready to brave the wet weather to search for the 15-year-old who has been missing since Friday March 16.
Klaas, and all the organizers of a volunteer search effort were shocked by the turnout.
NBC Bay Area reporter Marianne Favro said by noon, 563 people were registered to help out in the search; many of them had to wait for hours in line.
The family of Sierra LaMar, the teenager missing from her Morgan Hill home for more than a week, is getting some help from two people who know all too well what it's like to have a family member vanish.
Michael Le is part of the team. Last year a search volunteer found the body of his sister Michelle, a nursing student from Hayward.
"It feels like my sister is missing again, it feels like I frantically want to find Sierra," said Le.
Detectives investigating the disappearance of 15-year-old Sierra LaMar now believe the Morgan Hill teenager was likely abducted, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office announced Tuesday afternoon.
After interviewing those who know her best, investigators believe it is highly unlikely that LaMar, who went missing a week and a half ago, ran away from home, sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Jose Cardoza said.
The sheriff's office was asking local residents to report any suspicious behavior they observe in co-workers, neighbors or other community members.
Such activity could include changing one's appearance, cleaning a vehicle in an extreme way, missing days of work, or showing an unusual interest in or avoidance of news reports on the case, Cardoza said.
Sheriffs Investigators now believe its highly unlikely that Sierra LaMar ran away from home and will begin concentrating their investigative efforts on the possibility that the missing Morgan Hill teen was involuntary taken from her residence, Sgt. Jose Cardoza of the Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office said Tuesday afternoon.
That covers [ideas that] she was possibly abducted, possibly kidnapped, or she could of went to meet someone voluntarily and during the course was taken at that time, he said.
"We feel the keys to the resolution in this case are in our community," the sheriff's office said.
Investigators said they ruled out the possibility that Sierra left on her own after interviews with her friends and family revealed that she had no history of running away and no family problems.
After conducting a number of organized, exhaustive searches conducted by area search-and-rescue officers, interviewing hundreds of people associated with Sierra, and following up on scores of leads, the sheriffs office declared Tuesday, 11 days after the teen was reported missing, that it is highly unlikely she ran away, according to a press release Cardoza.
Sheriff's detectives are concentrating their investigative efforts on the possibility that Sierra LaMar was taken from the area of her residence and is an involuntary missing person, Cardoza said.
For the first few days of the investigation, investigators left open the possibility that Sierra ran away, even though no obvious evidence or her background specifically indicated such a scenario. The detectives were led to this conclusion after interviewing Sierras relatives and friends and completing other investigative efforts, Cardoza said.
Sierra's 21-year-old sister, Danielle LaMar, said she never believed Sierra ran away when she disappeared the morning of March 16.
"Obviously, I would rather have her run away," Danielle LaMar said Tuesday. "That would mean she's at least not being held against her will."
The family of Sierra LaMar, the teenager who went missing on March 16, announced today they have opened a fund to help pay for search and rescue efforts.
Sierra's parents are trying to keep their minds from wandering to a dark place, especially now that investigators have re-classified the 15-year-old's case. Now they say, there's a chance, someone is holding her against her will.
"Could be she voluntarily left the home and then at some time soon after, contacted somebody and or came into contact with somebody that now has involuntarily kept her missing," said Santa Clara Sheriff's Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said the most likely scenario is that Sierra was abducted by an acquaintance.
An acquaintance could be anything. It cannot just be someone that she knows, said Smith. It can be someone that shes comfortable seeing in the area that she knows would be there, someone that is really known to the area. But we dont believe she ran away or left voluntarily.
The determination that the unknown suspect or suspects in the possible abduction is familiar and comfortable with Morgan Hill is based partially on the location of Sierras home, Cardoza said. Police think she was likely picked up or abducted close to her residence.
She lives in a secluded area, Cardoza said. Theres not much of a chance that shes going to have contact with transients or strangers who are unfamiliar with the area.
Cardoza clarified that the official designation of Sierra as an involuntary missing person could mean she was abducted, kidnapped, or she voluntary ran away but ended up with someone who turned out to have malicious intent.
No specific evidence so far points more heavily toward any one of those options, he added.
For the first time since her disappearance, sheriff's dive teams with specially trained rescue K-9s are taking to the area's waterways to search for human remains, he said.
Dive teams scoured waterways Wednesdays including Uvas Reservoir and Parkway Lakes, after searching the Calero and Chesbro reservoirs Tuesday, Cardoza said.
No actual diving was set to occur unless search and rescue K-9s detect possible human remains in the water, he said.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff's office sent dive teams to Uvas Reservoir, Parkway Lake and Ogier perk pounds on Wednesday. Investigators said they will only send an actual diver into the water if a trained dog that specializes in water borne detection gets a hit for possible human remains.
The dogs and their handlers will be on boats with divers at the ready.
Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith told NBC Bay Area's Marianne Favro that Sierra's abduction was not a planned event. "We believe this was a situational crime," Smith said, meaning it was a crime of opportunity by a stranger. Smith also said she thinks the person who took Sierra knows the south county area very well and has strong ties there.
The sheriffs office has spent more than 3,000 personnel hours on the search, and followed up on more than 500 tips received via phone calls and emails, Cardoza said. Law enforcement agencies from surrounding counties, as well as the FBI have also aided in the search efforts.
Todays heightened search-and-rescue operations will also take place on the ground, focusing on the areas north of Palm Avenue and south of Bailey Road, including the Coyote Creek area, Anderson reservoir and Monterey Road west to the foothills, Cardoza said.
Residents of the Parkway Lakes RV Park, along with thousands of people all over South County, are eagerly awaiting closure to the case. Two of the RV parks residents who were outside watching the deputies and divers enter the marshy area surrounding the percolation ponds said they heard a vehicle pull up outside the locked gate late in the night after Sierra was reported missing.
James Silver, 15, said he did not see the vehicle but he heard it pull up to the gate late Saturday night. He was inside his grandmothers motorhome. He heard the car doors shut, and two men exit. He heard them talking briefly, and the vehicle left about 15 minutes later. One of Silvers neighbors, Helen Robison, 47, said she heard the same thing but did not see the vehicle or the men associated with it.
Silvers grandmother, Sandy Mullican, 68, said she was walking her dog a few hours after that, about 4 a.m. Sunday, and heard a loud screaming sound. But she and other residents indicated that the area is inhabited with mountain lions and bobcats, which sometimes make screaming sounds.
Sierra and her mother have been living in Morgan Hill since October. Tonya Miller, a family friend, said Sierra appeared to have adjusted to the move, briefly joining a private cheerleading club and befriending the daughter of her mother's boyfriend.
The day Sierra LaMar failed to get on the school bus at 7:15 a.m., teachers logged her into their computers as absent, hour by hour, throughout the day.
But not until 6 p.m. -- nearly 11 hours later -- did Sobrato High School in Morgan Hill send an automated email and phone call to the mother of the teen who vanished almost two weeks ago.
The time lag cost critical search hours and frustrated Marlene LaMar, who drove to the high school that March 16 afternoon hoping her 15-year-old daughter missed the bus home. After more frantic calls to friends and family, she called police 27 minutes after receiving the 6 p.m. email that her daughter never showed up for school.
"They had no idea of the situation before they got that email," Sierra's older sister, Danielle LaMar, 21, said of her parents. "Especially in this case, time definitely matters."
KRON4 has learned that Lamars family has undergone polygraph tests conducted by the FBI. The results of those polygraph tests are not being released. However, the Santa Clara County Sheriffs department does confirm to KRON4s Rob Fladeboe that there are more polygraphs tests pending. Police have said her mother, her mother's boyfriend and her father are not suspects.
Investigators said they have completed their search of all the major bodies of water near Morgan hill, with no new evidence collected.
This includes Anderson, Calero, Chesbro and Uvas Reservoirs along with local percolation ponds and parkway lakes. Investigators conducted the search via boats with a dog on board that can detect human remains underwater without actually having to dive in. The dogs never indicated a hit.
~~
The sheriff's office is working on the theory that this was a crime of opportunity -- that the perpetrator didn't plan this in advance.
Sheriff Smith points out that in many crimes like this "it's impulsive."
"Volunteer search members located an empty box that was labeled stainless steel handcuffs and five feet away a couple of used condoms," said Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jose Cardoza.
The area, the far west end of Palm Avenue, where the evidence was found is known to deputies as a place where underage people go to drink alcohol and party, Cardoza said.
Thursday afternoon's find would potentially be a major breakthrough in the case that has stymied police over the past two weeks -- or it could be a simple coincidence and another dead-end, investigators said. The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office won't know until the crime lab tests the cardboard box and condoms for DNA and other clues.
"Other than the fact that it's pretty close to Sierra's mom's house, there's no indication at this time that it's related," said Sgt. Jose Cardoza. "But we're collecting it as possible evidence."
"This may be another significant piece of evidence, but it's hard to confirm that it's related at this time," he added.
Used condoms and an empty handcuff box were found Thursday by a volunteer searcher at the west end of Palm Avenue, about a mile from missing teen Sierra LaMars bus stop in Morgan Hill, though Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said Thursday night that its possibly nothing.
Smith said that because it was found where a lot of teens like to park and hang out. Palm Avenue is a dead-end, rural road.
They found 150 things out there, condoms where kids like to park, beer cans, she said. Smith said everything collected is considered evidence and will be fully examined.
At the same time he confirmed the finding, Sgt. Jose Cardoza of the sheriff's office cautioned that investigators already had conducted five searches of the area where Thursday's discovery occurred.
"This means one of two things: Either the items were not seen before, overlooked, or they just recently were left there," Cardoza said.
Social media's impact on the search for 15-year-old Sierra LaMar is growing by day. Facebook users are helping get the word out about the Morgan Hill girl's disappearance.
Santa Clara County Sheriff's investigators say it doesn't appear that the handcuff box had been there very long because there was no deterioration and the label is still readable. It is worth noting that it has rained on several of the days since Sierra disappeared.
The president of KlaasKids Marc Klaas says he has his doubts the find is connected to Sierra.
I do have doubts sure. I think you have to be skeptical. We've been in this business an awful long time and you find things that seem hopeful all the time and they just prove not to be so," Klaas said.
Investigators will take the search for missing teen Sierra LaMar off road Saturday, Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office officials said.
The sheriff's off-road unit, mounted on ATVs, will search the South Coyote Creek Trail and the Cochrane Road to Bernal Road area Saturday, officials said.
The search for missing teen Sierra LaMar took crime scene investigators to a barren hillside between San Jose and Morgan Hill on Friday.
Working under pop-up tents, investigators poured five-gallon buckets of soil through a sifter, to capture small pieces of potential evidence.
Hundreds of people have given up their time to physically help in the search effort by volunteering with the KlaasKids Foundation.
There have also been cases of young children emptying the piggy banks and buying bottled water for the volunteers.
Now, money is beginning to pour in. Case in point is a $12,000 donation from the people who work for Intero Real Estate Services.
"We have no intention of suspending the search. What's going to happen is Phase 1 will end this Sunday simply because people flew out and need to return to their families," Klaas said.
The next part of the search begins Monday.
Residents are invited to a community march through downtown Morgan Hill to raise awareness of missing teen Sierra LaMar in order to bring her home quickly and safely, according to organizer Dori Prado.
The march will start at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, at the Community and Cultural Center, 17000 Monterey Rd. and continue to Main Avenue where the marchers will take a u-turn and proceed back to the community center.
Volunteer organizers from the KlaasKids Foundation told KTVU they had search assignments for as many as 1,000 attendees Saturday after 750 people signed up to help the day before, making Saturdays search party the biggest yet since the effort started two weeks ago.
Sierras aunt and uncle from Maine were there Friday. "At times like this, the family has to come together for support," said her uncle Terry LaMar. Sierra's adopted family is now in the thousands, with hundreds of volunteers showing up every day to help in the search for evidence.
The search for missing Morgan Hill teenager Sierra LaMar drew its most famous volunteer to date when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith joined the effort Saturday.
Marc Klaas, whose daughter Polly was killed in 1993 after being kidnapped from her Petaluma home, confirmed that Smith was among 581 people who turned out to search for the 15-year-old girl missing for two weeks.
"He wasn't there for attention. He was there to search," said Klaas, founder of the KlaasKids Foundation. "It was about his heart. It's certainly a touching thing, and it's a huge thing, too. By showing up, he provided a value that went well beyond his own presence as a searcher."
A morning full of rain didnt keep a sizable crowd from marching Saturday through downtown Morgan Hill to show support and raise awareness for missing 15-year-old Sierra LaMar.
The march was organized by Dori Prado of Morgan Hill, who has volunteered with KlaasKids Foundation all week in their efforts to enlist residents to help search for Sierra.
Gathering at the Community Center, Prado and other organizers distributed pink helium balloons and stacks of flyers depicting Sierras picture for the marchers to hand out along the route.
Despite the rain, hundreds of volunteers turned out Saturday to search for Sierra LaMar.
Nothing new was discovered during Saturday's search, which centered in a remote area of San Jose northwest of Morgan Hill.
The KlassKids Foundation is asking participants of a vigil for a Morgan Hill girl who has been missing for weeks to post her picture on their social media profiles for a day.
It is part of a 24-hour social media vigil the foundation is hosting beginning at 6 p.m. Sunday to encourage awareness, involvement and family support online for Sierra LaMar.
Although there are no plans for any search and rescue for the day, Cardoza said investigators are following up on the many tips they received over the weekend.
Teams are out there following up on any tips that they think may help with the case.
While the search teams were out hiking through steep hills and trails some of sierra's friends were upset because they were told everyone under 18 needed to stay behind. Klaas Kids Volunteers said they couldn't allow teen and children to go out and search because it's dangerous.
~~
So they decided to start helping out in their own way by fundraising. Some of the younger volunteers have been making hundreds of posters and posting them all over parts of Morgan Hill, some places in Gilroy and even parts of Watsonville.
Daily volunteer search efforts have been suspended by KlaasKids as of Monday morning, but searches are scheduled again for Saturday, April 7, and Wednesday, April 11, according to the press release. Those who want to help can show up at Burnett Elementary, 85 Tilton Ave., on those days from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. People can also help by donating supplies and money to assist in the search efforts.
Daily volunteer searches such as those that drew more than 2,000 volunteers last week are not sustainable for the foundation for now, Klaas said. On Sunday, more than 500 people showed up to volunteer for the search efforts. The search radius was expanded to 20 miles from Sierras north Morgan Hill home.
Weve turned the administration of the searches primarily over to the community and family, but were going to continue to provide mapping for the search efforts, and our team will be available to come out again as necessary, Klaas said.
Fundraiser to create awareness of Sierras disappearance and efforts to bring her home safely sponsored by Hot Hula Fitness Monterey/San Jose. All proceeds will benefit the Sierra Lamar Search Efforts/Reward Fund. The Hot Hula Fitness class also takes place at the Monterey Sports Center in Monterey.
They are continuing to come in, said Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office Sgt. Jose Cardoza. As each day goes on in this case, there are now close to a thousand tips.
Cardoza said that 180 tips were offered this past weekend.
First of all, I have to ask you, Marlene, what have these past two weeks been like for you?
MARLENE LAMAR, SIERRA`S MOTHER: Well, it`s truly unbelievable. You know, no parent should go through this. I have spoken with parents that are victims, and they truly feel what I`m going through. And it`s -- it`s a nightmare, and it`s -- it`s not going to end until I have her in my arms so I can give her a hug again. Until she comes home to me safely, the nightmare really isn`t over.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, I understand that cops said something in your daughter`s computer led them to believe that your daughter was being held against her will. Obviously, this is a very disturbing case, but do you know what that was? What did cops tell you? What have they told you?
LAMAR: Well, they didn`t say something specifically they found on the computer. They just said just from reviewing her Facebook and Twitter and, you know, all the data coming from her laptop didn`t indicate that, you know, there was the possibility, other possibilities leading to a runaway situation. You know, as far as her, she seemed like a normal teenager, doing the normal routine and normal conversing on Facebook. There wasn`t anything to indicate that she was unhappy and wanted to leave, for the most part of it.
The search for Sierra LaMar, 15, will expand to San Martin and Gilroy Thursday, nearly three weeks after the missing Morgan Hill resident was reported missing.
The Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office search-and-rescue team, including three human remains detection dogs, will search those areas of South County tomorrow from 9 a.m. until about 5:30 p.m., according to Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
GRACE: Everyone, the tip line 408-808-4331. With me is Sierra`s mother.
Miss Lamar, what are police telling you tonight?
LAMAR: Just that, you know, I`m aware of the box and the contents that was presented earlier on your show. I`m also aware they`re in the lab as far as trying to reach, you know, any conclusive evidence. I haven`t been notified as far as there being any, you know, link to the case directly.
GRACE: With me is Sierra`s mother, Marlene Lamar.
Miss Lamar, police sources are saying the condoms discovered near the school bus stop were, in fact, used. Have police asked you for any item from the home from which they could get Sierra`s DNA, such as her toothbrush or hair brush?
Yes. The investigators came with people who retrieve DNA from, you know, the immediate family members.
GRACE: I`m sure that they took -- got your DNA, did they, Miss Lamar?
LAMAR: Yes, they did.
GRACE: And from that they could get mitochondrial DNA match which only comes through your mother`s genetic makeup. Did they take a toothbrush or hair brush or anything belonging to Sierra?
LAMAR: Yes, yes, they took the hair from her hair brush and her toothbrush.
Thursday's search is being conducted by about 20 members of the sheriff's search-and-rescue team, and will involve K-9 units, sheriff's officials said.
"We're just looking for anything that looks like it would be interesting... things that are out of place, said Brian Ferry, a search and rescue team member.
Santa Clara County Sheriff Sgt. Jose Cardoza said investigators arent necessarily finished searching areas previously combed, but were exploring new ones.
"I don't want to say we've eliminated' areas, but we have covered, obviously, a lot of the Morgan Hill area, (and) a little north of Morgan Hill, Cardoza said.
Detectives are using a different approach to get the public involved in the search for missing children, like Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar.
San Jose-based Child Quest International has created "QR codes" that put missing child posters in your smartphone. The small, black-and-white squares are printed on posters that are hung, so when people pass it, they can scan the code with standard QR-code app on their smartphone. The code leads them to a website with more photos of the missing child, and the number for a hotline to report any tips.
The Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office does not plan to use a psychic in the search for Sierra LaMar, according to Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
In law enforcement, in general, we do not use psychics for investigative purposes, Cardoza said.
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith will participate in the next volunteer search for 15-year-old Sierra LaMar, according to the group that organizes the civilian search effort.
GRACE: To Sheriff Laurie Smith with Santa Clara County sheriff`s office. Sheriff Smith, with that text -- let`s see the text again, please, that she sent out the morning she goes missing. She sent this around 7:15 AM. There it is. Was there a message with the photo, Sheriff?
SMITH: The photo is actually separate from the text. There was a text message to one of her friends, and her friend answered the text. It was nothing that was critical to the investigation. I think she was just asking her to bring something to school.
GRACE: Well, to me, that is critical in itself because you`ve got the missing girl asking a friend, Can you bring something to me at school, which indicates this girl is not a runaway. She was intending on meeting up with her friend at school.
And Sheriff Smith, what time was that text to her friend?
SMITH: I think it was around 7:11 to -- yes, 7:11. And we believe that she was planning to go to school based on the items that we found that we`ve discussed in the past, her school -- her school books. That`s why -- and after talking with all of her friends, she would have told somebody. We believe that it was an abduction.
GRACE: You stated, Sheriff Smith, that you found her school books. Were they in her Juicy couture bag?
SMITH: Everything was together in the one location that we found wedged between a building and a big cactus.
GRACE: I`m sorry, I couldn`t hear you. Wedged between a building and a what?
SMITH: And a cactus, kind of a bush is where we found it. And I don`t know if the books were actually in the bag or -- but they were all found together.
GRACE: Well, that`s interesting because it seemed to me, from my understanding, the bag had just been thrown. But now I`m hearing they`re wedged between a cactus and a building, as if they were intentionally hidden there. Is that correct, Sheriff Smith?
SMITH: You know, it`s hard to tell. It could have been thrown. It could have been placed there. We can`t really tell. It looks like either could have been done.
Dear Editor,
This Message Goes Out To The Person Who Has Taken Sierra Lamar:
I strongly feel that you are watching from a distance, and that you have heard Sierras family, friends and the community plea for answers. Only God and you know what has happened, and where she is. We have faith in our God, and know in our hearts that He will one day bring her home.
If you have hurt Sierra, God holds her in his loving arms, and any pain you may have caused is no more. If you have taken her from this earth and her precious life, God has taken her home. If you have held her against her will, and she is okay, please let her go. I feel that you are out there completely alone, and wondering what to do next. I can guarantee that you have closely watched the news, and even been online reading the thousands of posts via Facebook, Twitter, etc. Did you happen to watch the video that Sierras friend made? Now that you have gotten a glimpse into her life, you truly know how beautiful, young and full of life she is, or was.
We have so many questions. Did you plan this? Was it random? What exactly happened that morning? Do you have family? I know that you must, and Im wondering how you would feel if this were your daughter, sister, mother, niece, or wife? Please take a moment and put yourself in Sierras shoes, and that of her mothers. Surely you would want your loved one safe, and never put in the position in which you have placed Sierra.
The family of a Morgan Hill teen who had been missing for more than three weeks announced Saturday morning that $10,000 would be awarded for information that resulted in the girls return.
The parents of 15-year-old Sierra LaMar announced the reward around 9:45 a.m. at Burnett Elementary School, the staging area for the volunteer search that was to proceed afterward in Morgan Hill.
The reward, announced Saturday, is available to the first person who provides information that leads to LaMar, 15, being returned alive and safe to her family, said KlaasKids Foundation founder Mark Klaas.
The funds for the reward come from LaMar's family, and not from the foundation, which has been coordinating volunteer search efforts, Klaas said.
Sierra's family announced the reward Saturday and said it was made possible through donations.
Thousands of people have participated in the search efforts so far. The Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office and other law enforcement investigators have also dedicated about 7,500 personnel hours to the search, and investigated more than 1,200 tips since March 16, according to sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
The mindset of some parents and grandparents has changed since March 16. Sierras half-mile walk from her home on Paquita Espana Court to her bus stop is a common distance to assigned bus stops for the daily 2,000 students. Students grades kindergarten through 6th grade can walk up to three-quarters of a mile to a bus stop whereas grades 7 through 12 can walk one and a-half miles, according to board policy.
Sierra was one of two students assigned to that bus stop, although according to Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini, the other student was seldom there.
Morgan Hill, Calif.- Volunteers are now asking for donations to keep their search going for missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra Lamar.
The Klass Kids Foundation is asking for donations of gift cards to Staples or Safeway. Plus, they're asking for poison oak lotion, bug spray, and ink for printers as well as printers.
Dear Editor,
This message goes out to the person who has taken Sierra LaMar:
I strongly feel that you are watching from a distance, and that you have heard Sierras family, friends and the community plea for answers. Only God and you know what has happened, and where she is. We have faith in our God, and know in our hearts that He will one day bring her home.
If you have hurt Sierra, God holds her in his loving arms, and any pain you may have caused is no more. If you have taken her from this earth and her precious life, God has taken her home.
Volunteers will continue the search for a missing Morgan Hill 15-year-old Wednesday morning.
Sierra Lamar disappeared near her home three weeks ago. Since then volunteers have been holding search parties for the teenager every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday.
On Wednesday the Klaaskids Foundation launched another volunteer search for the 15-year-old girl who disappeared before heading off to Sobrato High three Fridays ago.
Since then, more than 3,000 volunteers have helped law enforcement agencies search several miles around her home.
One of the 200 people who showed up to help on this day was Pat Boyd. His daughter Christie Wilson was murdered 6 1/2 years ago. Police found the killer, who has since been convicted, but they never found his little girl's body. Boyd said what happened to him helps motivate him to help other parents.
Nearly 200 people turned out to look for evidence in the search for missing Morgan Hill teenager Sierra LaMar on Wednesday. She disappeared nearly a month ago. The search is now concentrated south of Gilroy in remote and rugged terrain.
Investigators looking for missing north Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar will continue their efforts to find her by examining sonar images of the depths of local reservoirs taken earlier this week, according to a sheriffs spokesman.
The images were taken at Uvas and Chesbro reservoirs, and when processed will identify objects below the surface of the water, Santa Clara County Sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza said.
After the images are analyzed, sheriffs divers will return to the reservoirs and take an up-close look at any suspicious objects that were detected by sonar, Cardoza said.
The decision to conduct the underwater checks was done after investigators had no luck scanning the surface of Uvas, Chesbro and some nearby ponds on March 18, using a boat and a trained search dog, Cardoza said. Authorities fear the girl, who disappeared March 16, probably was kidnapped while walking to a bus near her high school.
He noted that the Sheriff's Office, which has logged more than 7,500 hours on the case, also plans this week to scour remote areas around Morgan Hill on motorized bikes looking for "clothing or other items that may be related to the case."
The family of missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar announced today the creation of an official website dedicated to the search and safe return of the girl who disappeared on March 16.
The webpage, www.FindSierraLaMar.com, will post new information, search details and resources as they become available, according to the KlaasKids Foundation, which provides search-and-rescue services for families of missing people.
Im not going to give up, said Marlene LaMar. I am determined, and the determination is whats giving me the energy to continue. The public is as well. People are coming back for a third and fourth time. Im truly astounded.
At a briefing, search party leader Melissa Williams told volunteers a little about Sierra. "She liked to wear multiple necklaces and little, silly band bracelets," Williams says. "That kind of stuff--stuff a fifteen-year-old would wear or like to have."
And with that, the searchers are off. The group spreads out in a line to search under a highway overpass. A creek runs through a shallow ravine. The banks are lined with dead leaves and scraggly thorn bushes. This isn't the kind of search Maturino, the mother from San Jose, wants to be doing.
Divers are looking in the Chesbro and Uvas reservoirs, both located west of Morgan Hill and in close proximity to LaMar's home. They're searching for any evidence connected with the disappearance of the 15-year-old, including the worst-case scenario of finding her body.
Investigators are following up on more than 1,000 images captured by sonar equipment.
Thursday's underwater search of the Chesbro Reservoir was slow and methodical as divers from the Santa Clara Sheriff's Office were tethered to deputies on land by a rope because of the murky conditions.
Peter Robinson, a diver with the sheriff's department, described the search conditions as dark with about 2 feet of visibility.
The dive team is at the Chesbro Reservoir Thursday. They will visit the Uvas Reservoir Friday so that they can check out other objects of interest, according to the sheriff.
Even making an estimate of the cost so far would require complicated number-crunching that Santa Clara County hasnt devoted resources to yet, according to sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
The scores of detectives and deputies working on the case since March 16, the day Sierra, 15, was reported missing, are not only local personnel, but they are assisting the county from other agencies including San Mateo County and the FBI, Cardoza explained.
When those other agencies help out with the search for Sierra and any other case through mutual aid agreements, those other agencies pick up those personnel costs without billing the county, Cardoza said.
But whatever the costs are so far, Its not going to prevent anything theyre doing to investigate the case, said Santa Clara County Supervisor Mike Wasserman, who represents the South County district.
It has now been a month since Sierra LaMar disappeared from Morgan Hill. On Friday, deputies spent the second day in a row diving in area reservoirs looking for clues into the teenager's disappearance.
Divers said hundreds of items they found on Thursday are not connected to LaMar's disappearance.
"Everything we hit was a tree. I think there might have been one or two boulders that were just large. Again, we can't always tell what it is," Robinson said.
They came across some large trees, Cardoza said. Totally unrelated stuff.
Cardoza said divers would search the nearby Uvas Reservoir on Friday.
Its a day-to-day operation, he said. Each thing they see they will send divers to double check.
Santa Clara County Sheriff's investigators and search crews came up empty on Friday on the one-month anniversary of the disappearance of Morgan Hill teenager Sierra Lamar.
Sgt. Jose Cardoza said the underwater search and rescue team did not find the 15-year-old Thursday while they scoured the Chesbro reservoir. And the team also didn't find her on Friday, when they dove to eight spots within the Uvas reservoir.
Sierras mother is grateful the search effort hasnt let up.
Theyre not finding anything in the lake is giving me hope. But its difficult knowing that theyre doing it, said Marlene LaMar.
Volunteers, led by the KlaasKids Foundation, will be out this weekend conducting searches for evidence into the disappearance of 15-year-old Sierra Lamar who has now been missing for four weeks.
The San Francisco Giants reminded their Facebook fans that 15-year-old Sierra LaMar, the missing Morgan Hill teen, will not be among the millions of baseball fans tuning in to watch opening week.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight, a community on edge as a teen`s disappearance sparks a terrifying mystery. Was 15-year-old Sierra LaMar kidnapped by a dangerous and experienced sexual predator who is still on the loose as we speak? The popular cheerleader vanished one month ago after kissing her mom good-bye before school. She never made it to the bus stop that morning.
Volunteers are spending the weekend looking for missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar.
The KlaasKids Foundation organized Saturday's search.
More than 400 people showed up to the Find Sierra Search Center located at Burnett Elementary School in Morgan Hill.
Santa Clara County Sheriff Deputies plan to go door to door Saturday near the home of missing Morgan Hill teenager Sierra LaMar to speak with residents and gather new information on her disappearance.
Meanwhile, volunteers were back out in the area today, expanding their search for LaMar. We went door-to-door with volunteers walking along the Llagas neighborhood in Morgan Hill. Search volunteers say going door-to-door is one of the most effective ways to continue getting information on Sierra. Steve LaMar, Sierra's father says volunteers are looking to talk with neighbors to see if they've noticed anything out of the ordinary in the last few weeks. "Just if they've been acting abnormal or were they gone for a while unexpectedly anything like that," said LaMar.
The family of missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar will mark the one-month anniversary of her disappearance Monday as searches of the area around her home continue.
Her family will mark the passage of a month with a balloon prayer release Monday at 6:30 p.m. at Burnett Elementary School.
"This month has truly been a nightmare," Sierra's father Steve LaMar said. "But our volunteers have given us faith, hope and the perseverance to continue in our search efforts. This balloon release will give us a chance for all of us to get together in prayer for Sierra."
Residents told Central Coast News they have mixed feelings about the national news coverage of Sierra LaMar. We walked down some of the busiest streets in Morgan Hill and talked with people who had different opinions about Morgan Hill in the media.
Sierra's abduction has been broadcast on Nancy Grace, Good Morning America, America's Most Wanted and several other media outlets. Some Sobrato High School students told us the city's image has been changing since Sierra's disappearance became a national headline.
Late Monday afternoon, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department announced that test results from the crime lab has yielded new leads, but declined to reveal the nature of the clues.
Early on, searches near Sierra's home turned up items including her cell phone, purse and clothing.
"It is one of those items. We can't specify as to this point is it the results back from the cell phone, results from Sierra's clothing [or] a couple of other items submitted in this case," said Sgt.Jose Cardoza.
A month has passed since 15-year old Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar went missing, and today, the Santa Clara County Sheriffs investigators announced what could lead to a break in the case.
The results are back from the crime lab on evidence discovered during the searches, but they are not yet releasing what those results are.
Sierras family planned to host the vigil and balloon release at Burnett Elementary School, which has been converted into a temporary search center for the Sobrato High School sophomore since March 20.
Onto the Search for Sierra, a somber tribute from family and friends of the missing 15-year-old Morgan Hill girl marking a grim milestone.
"It's really hard," says Sierra's mother Marlene LaMar. "It's just hard to talk earlier because it's been so long."
Cardoza said Monday that dives into the Chesbro Reservoir and the Uvas Reservoir last week, both within a few miles of Sierras home, turned up nothing related to the case. Cardoza said Monday that authorities will begin some pre-operation type work to prepare for dives later this week into the Calero and Anderson reservoirs.
Those two reservoir are located from five to 10 miles from the home, and Cardoza said they are the only two remaining in the county.
Its just to be as thorough as possible, Cardoza said. The investigators just want to be sure.
As of April 13, the Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office has received approximately 1,400 tips regarding the disappearance of Sierra LaMar, many of which have been relayed to authorities from people living hundreds of miles away from the missing teens home in Morgan Hill.
The farthest [sighting] that I know ofI don't monitor all the tipscame from Arizona, said Sgt. Jose Cardoza of the Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office. I know there was a sighting of her in Phoenix, in the Dallas area, in Southern California there were a lot of sightings, and all along the Bay Area.
Its been a month since 15 year old Sierra Lamar disappeared and so far people have donated more than $15,000 to the search effort.
Divers from the Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office returned to the scene of some shallow percolation ponds in north Morgan Hill as part of their ongoing search for missing teen Sierra LaMar.
The divers and detectives arrived at the ponds, just east of the intersection of Monterey Highway and Ogier Avenue, the day after the sheriffs office announced the county crime lab had finished processing some evidence found in the case which led to new clues.
Residents of the RV park near Tuesday's dive operations say that area, not far from Sierra's home, has gotten a lot of attention.
"We've seen them go door to door, looking in places and stuff and mostly just down there... the water and the woods over there," Parkway Lakes RV Park resident Helen Robinson said.
Three-member teams in boats hope to wrap up their search of several ground water percolation ponds a few miles from the home where missing teenager Sierra Lamar was last seen more than a month ago.
"They don't want to be too specific in case it may lead to a possible person of interest or a suspect," Sgt. Jose Cardoza, a sheriff's spokesman, told the Associated Press. "There's still more follow-up work that needs to be done."
A simple writing assignment at a Salinas school reveals concerns from teenage girls about Sierra LaMar's disappearance. The question, should teenagers be allowed to go to the mall alone? Their answers may surprise you.
While most teens want their independence, 7th graders from M*** d** S*** School in Salinas don't because of what happened to Sierra LaMar.
"When I hear about a teen that has been kidnapped," says 13-year-old V*** M***. "I start to feel less safe. I feel like this could happen to me, especially when it happens close by."
The Santa Clara Sheriff's dive unit Wednesday morning finished searching another percolation pond near Ogier and Monterey roads in Morgan Hill for Sierra Lamar, the teenager who disappeared near her home a month ago.
Wednesday searchers received permission to look in three private ponds.
Then if all goes according to schedule, they'll wrap up at Calero Reservoir.
Despite some new leads, the number of volunteers searching for missing teen Sierra LaMar has been dwindling. The sheriff's dive team returned Wednesday to search some ponds just south of the Coyote Creek Golf Course in Morgan Hill. Organizers at the search center are using new tactics to recruit more volunteers to help.
Volunteers have once again gathered at Burnett Elementary School in Morgan Hill to conduct another search for the teen. The focus of the volunteer search will be on land while sheriff's investigators are set to concentrate their searches to waterways. KRON 4's Will Tran reports that Sierra's mother, Marlene Lamar, was on hand at Burnett Elementary Wednesday morning thanking volunteers for their efforts.
While organizers of the search for missing cheerleader Sierra Lamar worry about what they call "volunteer fatigue" many of the people who are helping in the search say they hope to provide answers for the girl's family.
"Sierra is Morgan Hill's little girl and she needs to be found," one volunteer said. "I've got kids of my own and I like to help anyway I can and hope that maybe today we'll find something," another man added.
Friends, family and viewers were shocked to see a tweet supposedly sent out by Sierra LaMar come across the Twitter feeds, Wednesday afternoon.
The tweet, which was sent out under Sierra's Twitter profile, said "By the way, we do punch b******."
Authorities believe someone hacked into missing teen Sierra LaMars Twitter account and sent out a tweet early Thursday that has added to the emotional distress of her family.
Sheriff's Sgt. Jose Cardoza said authorities have determined the tweet was a hoax.
Cardoza said that the detectives' best guess is that whoever sent this latest tweet either knew the girl, or has superb hacking abilities. Detectives will seek to find this person, he said, with the intent of arresting them on a misdemeanor charge of Internet impersonation.
The sheriffs office and other agencies have logged more than 10,000 personnel hours so far in the search for Sierra, 15, who police say was kidnapped while walking to her school bus stop in rural north Morgan Hill March 16.
Our investigation is still focused on locating her alive, because we dont have any information otherwise, Santa Clara County Sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza said. Were still doing a lot of investigative efforts. We continue to follow up on leads, and continue to do searches.
The sheriff's office will be joined by detectives from San Mateo, Monterey, Santa Cruz and Marin counties for another intensive search-and-rescue effort Saturday, Cardoza said.
Authorities are gearing up for another daylong search for missing 15-year-old Sierra LaMar this weekend.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office plan to lead a "refined" search of areas in Morgan Hill, San Martin and Gilroy on Saturday.
On Saturday, the "Navy Seals" of searchers, those who are trained in high-terrain, advanced wilderness searching, will be out scouring areas of Morgan Hill, Gilroy and San Joaquin for the girl, according to Santa Clara County Sheriff Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
According to authorities, specially trained detection K9s, the California Highway Patrol, Sheriff's Office Off-Road Enforcement Unit and San Francisco 49ers team member Delanie Walker will also be on hand to assist in the weekend search.
To spread awareness about missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar, BART cars were outfitted with 200 posters advising riders of the girl's disappearance, according to the KlaasKids Foundation.
The posters include Sierra's name, photo and description as well as law enforcement contact information.
Volunteers fanned out in Santa Clara Saturday in another search for missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar.
Peggy Thompson of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office sloshed through Coyote Creek trying to catch a scent, hoping to turn up new clues in the search for LaMar.
Specialized search and rescue teams skilled at navigating rough terrain will conduct a daylong search Saturday in southern Santa Clara County for missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office said it will lead a "refined" search of areas of Morgan Hill, San Martin and Gilroy, beginning at 9 a.m. and lasting until sunset.
Sheriff's deputies have previously checked the hills and rural areas on dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles.
"This time they will be having foot searches, climbing some of these rough areas," said Sgt. Jose Cardoza of the sheriff's office.
Biggest Missing Person Search Executed in Morgan Hill. More than 100 deputies searched parts of Morgan Hill and Gilroy with helicopters, dirt bikes, K-9 units and search teams on foot.
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While no evidence has been found yet deputies say that may be a good sign. "Just because we have limited evidence it is not necessarily a bad thing because its evidence that helps us out in the case but for all we know she still could be out there alive," said Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
Iron Souls motorcycle club from Oakland rode down to Morgan Hill and joined the search for Sierra LaMar Sunday.
Although the disappearance on the morning of March 16 of the outgoing 15-year-old with a passion for cheer leading, rap music, Twitter and the color pink has drawn sympathy coast to coast, little has emerged from the investigation to unravel the mystery of where she is. Detectives on the case are quietly putting the scattered pieces of evidence together like a problematic jigsaw puzzle, revealing little except to the girl's family.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office said that's simply how it does business. The agency does not provide details as they come up because detectives aren't sure how important each detail is, where it might lead them or what might happen, says department spokesman Sgt. Jose Cardoza. There's no telling what Sierra's kidnappers, if there are any, or reluctant witnesses might do if they knew how close investigators were getting.
"It could be any number of things," Cardoza says. "It could affect future searches and interviews, or
how we work on evidence that's still coming in." And although detectives are free to talk to reporters and the public, in general the investigators have chosen to remain behind the scenes.
And that's just fine with Marlene LaMar, who says the Sheriff's Office updates her "pretty consistently" with inside information.
It's too painful because Boyd's own daughter Christie Wilson was kidnapped and murdered as she left Thunder Valley Casino near Sacramento. She was 27 years old and her body was never found.
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Boyd said although she can't help in the physical search, she is reaching out personally to Sierra's parents.
Responding to parent pressure after the disappearance of Sierra La Mar, the Morgan Hill Unified School District on Monday began notifying parents in the morning as well as evening if their children don't show up to school.
The district's automatic calling system will inform parents of any unexcused absences at 10:30 a.m., in addition to the previous 6 p.m. notification.
For the next school year, the district is hoping to offer parents the option of being notified by text message or by email when their children have an unverified absence.
Mark Klaas, founder of the Klaas Kids Foundation said that these changes are necessary in the wake of LaMars apparent kidnapping.
Had Marlene and Steve known hours earlier that their daughter had not shown up for school, which was totally out of character, they would have taken action much sooner than they did, and precious time would have been saved, said Klaas.
Sierra went missing on her way to school on March 16th. Investigators say they believe she was kidnapped.
That theory brought the national TV crime show America's Most Wanted to the LaMar home, and the volunteer center.
A show featuring her case is set to air May 11th.
Sierra's mother Marlene LaMar said she appreciated the effort.
"It's important for everybody, locally and on a national level, to be aware that we are continuing the search," said LaMar. "That we are hopeful and we are not giving up."
On Tuesday, Sierra's father, Steve LaMar, flew to Los Angeles with AMW's famed host John Walsh.
The crew also sat down for a interview with Sierra's mother Marlene LaMar. They will finish up the production of the piece Thursday with an interview with Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith.
Sigue said the interviews included tough questions for family members.
"We know that typically when a child goes missing its someone who is close to them who is responsible, so we want to make sure like every other news organization that we have all the information we can put out there and gather to help find Sierra," Sigue said.
Steve LaMar, 49, said Walsh asked good questions during their interview. Naturally, he shares Walshs desire to get Sierras story heard by as many ears across country as possible.
They have a pretty good success rate finding missing persons, LaMar said. One example is Elizabeth Smart. A tip was called in after someone saw her story on the show.
Smart was kidnapped at the age of 14 in 2002 in Utah, and found nine months later still being held captive by her kidnappers.
Were trying to keep Sierras story out there, and visible to people so they know shes still missing and were still trying to find her, LaMar said.
The family of a Morgan Hill teen who has been missing for more than a month plans to increase the reward being offered for her safe return.
Steve LaMar, the father of Sierra LaMar, plans to announce the increase Saturday morning, according to the KlaasKids Foundation, which is helping organize volunteers searching for the missing girl.
As a result of some generous contributions and ongoing fundraising, including a large anonymous contribution, we are able to increase the reward to $25,000, announced Steve LaMar, Sierras father, at a press conference at Burnett Elementary School Saturday.
Steve LaMar made the announcement with Sierras mother Marlene LaMar and Marc Klaas, of the KlaasKids Foundation, while volunteers joined yet another search effort that was headquartered at the school.
The family initially offered a $10,000 reward earlier this month. That amount was also generated by fundraising efforts.
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Steve LaMar added at the press conference Saturday that the family is in constant communication with investigators from the sheriffs office, but did not indicate if he knew any details on the investigation of numerous leads that law enforcement continue to receive.
Circus Raises Money for Sierra LaMar Fund. On Sunday a circus visiting Salinas put on a charity show for missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra LamMar for funds to bring her back home.
Investigators have already searched some area reservoirs and ponds including a cluster of percolation ponds, Calero Reservoir and Uvas Reservoir with the sheriffs office dive team using side-scan sonar technology and K9 search animals in recent weeks.
Sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza announced Monday that the water-searching efforts will be expanded this week to include Parkway Lakes in South San Jose, as well as Anderson, Coyote, Almaden and Guadalupe reservoirs.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff's department released an update on the investigation late Monday saying as a result of their investigation into Sierra's disappearance they have made several apparently unrelated arrests of registered sex offenders.
Investigators said they contacted the sex offenders as part of the LaMar investigation, and found five of them to be out of compliance with the law.
A fundraising pasta feed will be held Friday evening to benefit the continuing search for Sierra Lamar, the 15-year-old Morgan Hill girl who disappeared March 16.
Trudy Parks is what you would call a regular in the Sierra LaMar search effort. She has signed up for eight volunteer assignments, including one day of back-to-back excursions.
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Wednesday, a new sign went up at the search center reminding everyone their help is needed. Steve LaMar says the community's commitment is a huge source of support for the entire family.
"It really helps us cope," he said. "Me, Marlene and Danielle, to see people that dedicated to finding Sierra."
The Santa Clara County Sheriffs dive team spent the day Thursday searching Anderson reservoir, the largest reservoir in the county, for any sign of missing teen Sierra LaMar.
Today they plan to finish searching the rest of the lake, using side scan sonar detection devices, and then continue to Almaden and Guadalupe reservoirs in San Jose, using the same search techniques, according to sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
If they see anything of concern to the case, theyll send a diver in, Cardoza said.
"This is a reality. As a parent you want to do everything possible for your child to protect them and this is coming from a person, who is going through this," says Sierra LaMar's mother Marlene. "When she comes back, I'm going to definitely have her take a self defense class."
For the first time in more than a month, investigators searching for 15-year-old Sierra LaMar reported new leads in the case, and are asking the public to report any sightings of a red four-door sedan with a black hood.
Detectives say the car in question is a 1990s model red Volkswagen Jetta, with a black hood, according to Santa Clara County Sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
Police released a picture of a similar-looking vehicle.
The vehicle was recently confirmed as having been in the area surrounding Sierras home about the time of her March 16 kidnapping, Cardoza said.
Over the last couple weeks, detectives have done some re-interviews, and some additional tips and leads have helped corroborate this vehicles relation to the case, Cardoza said. Its more than a coincidence.
"For them to release this to the media, it's huge," said Marlene LaMar, Sierra's mother. "This is not just a hypothesis. I had not been able to say that previously."
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"The community has stepped it up. They've been there from the very beginning," she said. "They're going to continue being really responsive and observant for that vehicle."
The heartbroken mother even offered reassuring words for whoever was driving the car or may have taken her daughter.
"Right now it's not about getting this person in trouble or going after a conviction. I don't know this person or whatever led them to the situation to do this," LaMar said. "It's not too late to do the right thing. It's about her recovery."
Investigators have located a red Volkswagen Jetta they believe may be linked to the disappearance of Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office announced Tuesday.
Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Jose Cardoza this afternoon called the development "pretty significant" and said investigators will perform a forensic examination of the vehicle.
"The Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office appreciates the publics response by providing information on the vehicle in question," officials said in a written statement. "Investigators do have the vehicle in their custody but are asking the public to report any sightings of this vehicle and/or occupants during the time surrounding Sierras disappearance."
"It's still an open investigation," Cardoza told The Associated Press on Tuesday following a briefing in San Jose. "Our investigators do not want to compromise the case. We do not want to jeopardize anything."
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"We really need the public to come forward and help provide us with any information they may have about this vehicle," Cardoza said. "We want to know if they saw it in Morgan Hill, outside of Morgan Hill during the time she went missing so our investigators can piece everything together."
"After two months without anything, it's significant that we got this car, and we're hoping it yields something major," said Sgt. Jose Cardoza, of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office.
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Investigators "need information from people who saw it just before, during or after," Cardoza said, "They need people to come forward."
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"We don't have any information indicating she is no longer alive," Cardoza said. "Sometimes no news is good news."
As for the owner or driver, we're not there yet, Santa Clara County Sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza said. One thing you dont want to do on a high profile criminal case is you dont want to single out anyone for being associated unless you have a little more [info].
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Within the last week or two it piqued detectives interest againthat this is more than just a coincidence, Cardoza said. It was pretty obvious that it was the same vehicle [investigators] were looking at more than once."
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Was there one driver? Were there other persons inside the vehicle? Was Sierra inside the car or not inside the car? Theyre just not commenting on that right now, he said. Right now the focus is on reaching out to the public.
Cardoza said that detectives know who the car owner is, but there is "no person of interest" in the case yet.
Still, Cardoza said detectives need more help. "We need information about this car," he said, "and we'd like to know who was driving it before, during and after Sierra went missing."
Investigators are asking the public to report any sightings of this vehicle and/or occupants during the time surrounding Sierras disappearance, Santa Clara County Sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza wrote in a press release.
The number of volunteers dropped by 20 percent Wednesday, a big disappointment at Burnett Elementary School where the search teams are put together, but hope remains high that a break in the case could come at any time.
Volunteers were out searching shortly after 8 a.m. along Coyote Creek and other small ponds, undaunted by heavy growth of poison oak.
On March 23, San Jose police responded to the attempted kidnapping of a 16-year-old girl in which her assailant used a stun gun-type device on her and tried to force her into a red compact car with tinted windows in Willow Glen.
A week earlier, on March 14 and 15, Walnut Creek police said a man tried twice to lure a 13-year-old middle schooler into his faded, red, older-model sedan.
Sheriff's Sgt. Jose Cardoza said in a statement Wednesday that his agency contacted San Jose and Walnut Creek police to explore possible links, but found none.
Sheriff’s search and rescue personnel will be conducting a search effort in the area of south Morgan Hill this afternoon, according to Santa Clara County Sheriff spokesman Sgt. Jose Cardoza. The ground search operation will focus on open fields and construction sites and zones in south Morgan Hill.
Tonight, the syndicated television show, America's Most Wanted will broadcast an in-depth segment on the missing Morgan Hill Teen.
Two days before Mother's Day, the mother of missing Morgan Hill-area teen Sierra LaMar issued a poignant statement reflecting on the joys and difficulties of motherhood.
The brief, three-paragraph letter sent to media outlets said that Sierra was her "miracle baby," conceived when Marlene LaMar, now 51, had been told she might not get pregnant again.
"Mother's Day is a time of reflection on what being a mom has brought to your life. Being a mom has been the greatest joy of my life. From the moment I knew that a little life was growing inside me, there was an overwhelming need to protect and nurture my child," the letter began.
Marlene LaMar said she wrote the letter for her daughters Danielle, 21, and Sierra, 15, and also for other mothers.
Dear Editor,
As one of many volunteers manning the kitchen at the Sierra LaMar Recovery Center at Burnett School, I want to publicly thank all those who have contributed food and drinks for the hundreds of volunteers searching for Sierra.
Food has been served all day on each of the days the center has been open and some donors have been back each and every day bringing coffee and food.
Come by the Recovery Center at Burnett and take a look at the list of food donors displayed on the kitchen wall. Support and thank those businesses and individuals who have gone above and beyond in support of the search. This community, which extends from Gilroy to San Jose, has shown such heart and generosity.
Joan Sullivan, Morgan Hill
Sheriffs office plans to send divers into local waterways to search for Sierra LaMar and received some tips in response to Friday nights airing of a segment on the missing Morgan Hill teen on Americas Most Wanted.
In response to some anomalous sonar images that cast shadow-looking shapes on the bottoms of Anderson, Coyote and Almaden reservoirs last week, the Santa Clara County sheriffs office dive team plans to go into the water and more closely examine the objects, according to sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
The red, Volkswagen Jetta that investigators are associating with the kidnapping of Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar has yet to undergo forensic examination, and authorities will not disclose when the examination will begin, or if they're in the process of examining the vehicle once they start.
The vehicle is in evidence, and will be examined at some point, Santa Clara County Sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza said.
Sheriffs divers are returning to Anderson, Almaden and Guadalupe reservoirs to verify objects that divers captured via sonar last week while searching for clues in the disappearance of Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar.
Some images, like in prior water searches, came up that were questionable, Santa Clara County Sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza said.
Questionable items that have appeared in past water searches include tires, vehicles, trees and large tree stumps, among other large objects.
Friends and family of missing Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar are marking the two-month anniversary of her disappearance today with another search.
Sierra, 15, disappeared after she left for school on the morning of March 16, prompting extensive searches of the area. Sheriff's investigators have said they believe her disappearance is an abduction.
"This is not how I wanted to acknowledge this date, but I am deeply grateful that the community continues to support her cause," Sierra's father, Steve LaMar said in a statement Tuesday.
"Although today marks the painful two-month milestone since my daughter Sierra went missing, my family and I remain positive and confident that she will be back home safe with us soon," Steve LaMar wrote in a brief memo posted on the website dedicated to finding Sierra.
Americas Most Wanted has received tips ranging from potential areas of interest to a sighting of the Volkswagen associated with Sierra LaMars disappearance. The tips were relayed the weekend after the national crime show aired its latest coverage of the LaMar case on May 11.
Santa Clara County Sheriffs Sgt. Jose Cardoza said AMW has been forwarding tips to the Sheriffs Office as theyre received. Four tips came in last weekend, and more tips may have been sent throughout the week, Cardoza said.
According to a news release from the Klaas Kids Foundation, Sierra LaMar's mother Marlene is asking the community to take time off from searching for her daughter over the Memorial Day weekend.
"We would like our searching family to spend time with their families this coming Memorial Day weekend," said Marlene LaMar. "Therefore a community search will not be scheduled for Saturday, May 26."
A KTVU camera crew was at the Safeway store on Tenant Avenue in Morgan Hill at around 6 p.m. when sheriff's detectives took Garcia-Torres, a store employee, into custody.
KTVU followed the detectives to the sheriff's headquarters in San Jose and were outside at around 9 p.m. when detectives took Torres to the main county jail.
Sources tell KTVU detectives questioned Garcia-Torres for two hours about the missing teenager, trying to find out her location.
In a statement, Cardoza said, "Detectives believe Garcia-Torres is responsible for Sierra LaMar's disappearance."
The suspect attended Central High School in Morgan Hill and does not have a serious criminal history except for a 2009 arrest for resisting arrest, KTVU-TV reported.
Marc Klaas, who has been organizing volunteer searches since Sierra's disappearance, says he was given the same incomplete news after his own 12-year-old daughter, Polly, was kidnapped from their Petaluma home in 1993.
"I would say they're very angry now," Klaas said of the LaMar family, although he hadn't talked to them late Monday night.
"They've been told somebody murdered their daughter, but they can't prove it. That's how I felt. They needed to prove to me one way or another before I would accept anything, until they proved to me my
daughter was dead."
After being dominated by fear and anger for the past two months, the LaMar family is now "possibly at the point where there won't be anything left to be afraid of," Klaas said.
Until Sierra's body is recovered, he said, his volunteers will continue with a scheduled search Wednesday "in hopes of still finding Sierra alive."
"It was about 5:30, I was at work and we just saw a bunch of cops and guns drawn and I couldn't see anyone if they took him away. I just saw the cops, it was just cops and cop cars, it was all really fast," said Bobby Fox, a witness at Safeway.
In two of the cases, the suspect, who was never caught, allegedly entered the women's' car from the rear driver-side door of their cars.
In at least one of the instances a woman said her attacker used a Tazer gun to stun her. At the time authorities said they believed the attacker was the same in all three cases.
Sgt. Troy Hoefling says these crimes happened back to back and he believes they are all connected. "All three of these incidents happened within a 7 day period," said Hoefling.
On March 19, 2009, a woman was attacked with a stun gun at Safeway on Dunne Ave. Minutes earlier at the same parking lot a man followed a woman to her car and tried to break in. Then days later, on March 26th another attack occurred, but this time a woman was assaulted by a man with a knife at the Safeway on Tenant Ave.
Investigators say Garcia-Torres is a suspect in one of these cases and a person of interest in the other two.
The incident involved a Taser, and the victim managed to get away, Assistant Sheriff Pete Rode said, declining to provide more specifics.
Garcia-Torres declined an interview request by The Associated Press, and it was unknown if he has retained a lawyer, said Sgt. Jose Cardoza, a sheriff's office spokesman.
Garcia-Torres worked at Safeway on Tennant Avenue in Morgan Hill as recently as 2010 -- the same Safeway where he was arrested at gunpoint Monday night. With evidence in the Sierra case, police have also linked him to a 2009 Taser assault of a woman in her car in that Safeway parking lot.
Interrogating Garcia-Torres for several hours Monday night failed to reveal further clues to Sierra's whereabouts. But teams continued to search Uvas Reservoir and other south county waterways Tuesday, and a previously scheduled volunteer search will go forward as planned Wednesday.
The young Morgan Hill man Santa Clara County Sheriff's investigators say kidnapped and murdered missing teen Sierra LaMar had been convicted of two misdemeanor crimes in 2009, court records reveal.
They also indicate Antolin Garcia-Torres had been arrested June 16, 2010 for felony battery and unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor between Oct. 1, 2009 and June 9, 2010.
Antolin Garcia-Torres' mother, Laura Torres, sobbed outside her home at Maple Leaf RV Park when she thought about her son being taken away and charged with the murder of 15-year-old Sierra LaMar, a crime she is certain he didn't commit.
I'm the mom, I know when my sons are in trouble. And he wasn't in trouble, Torres said, wiping tears from her puffy eyes. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Torres described her son as the kind of father who cooked for his wife after a long day at work, and who changed his 20-month-old daughter's diaper without being asked.
Garcia-Torres attended Morgan Hill Unified School Districts Live Oak High School, before transferring to Central Continuation High School in 2010, but did not graduate, according to Julie Zintsmaster, MHUSD executive secretary.
Straight out to Keith Lamar, special guest joining us. This is little Sierra`s cousin. Keith, what is the family`s reaction to the arrest of Garcia-Torres?
KEITH LAMAR, COUSIN, SIERRA LAMAR: Hi, Nancy. I`d say confusion would be the best word to describe it right now. We`ve got an arrest and we`ve got a statement from the Sheriff that Sierra is no longer alive, but we don`t have a body.
GRACE: So the confusion is that the family believes Sierra may still be alive somewhere.
LAMAR: I suppose so. For a Sheriff to make a statement like you know Sierra is no longer alive, that`s pretty bold. And I just don`t know -- I mean, perhaps it`s because I`m a cousin, so I`m outside of the immediate circle, or they just -- I mean I don`t know.
That`s where the confusion lies. Why are they saying that she`s dead?
Neighbors of the man accused of kidnapping and murdering Sierra LaMar said that he mostly kept to himself. Antolin Garica-Torres lived with his pregnant girlfriend and their child at the Maple Leaf RV Park in Morgan Hill, just down the road from Sierra's home.
"I don't know why but this guy gives me an eery feeling," said Galvan, the suspect's neighbor. Garcia-Torres did not go out of his way to talk to people who lived close to him, said neighbors.
Kenneth Piccolo, a former English teacher for Antolin Garcia-Torres at Central Continuation High School, said he remembers Garcia-Torres' Jetta.
"My car has a black hood too, and we joked about it," Piccolo said. "You don't put two and two together and think, that's Antolin's car."
"I'm in total shock right now," Piccolo said. "We never thought he was a criminal or a troublemaker."
Piccolo described Garcia-Torres as "always respectful, very polite," and a "bigger-than-life presence on campus; very social." He didn't graduate because he didn't do all his work, not for lack of intelligence, he said.
Normally the Sierra Search Center isn't open on days when no active searches are scheduled. But because of the Monday night arrest of suspect Antolin Garcia-Torres, organizers unlocked the doors so volunteers could gather and console each other.
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Klaas Kids founder Marc Klaas said it is critical for people to continue to search, because right now the suspect holds the power.
"He's got a bargaining chip," explained Klaas. "He can plea down in exchange for her remains. We need to remove that bargaining chip from him."
Investigators involved in the capture of Antolin Garcia-Torres, the 21-year-old Morgan Hill man arrested on charges of kidnapping and murdering Sierra LaMar, have pulled off something quite remarkable, according to Marc Klaas, founder of the KlaasKids Foundation.
"They nailed a guy in a stranger abduction," he said. "That is one of the hardest things to do. I may quibble here and there with the way they released information publicly, but you cannot fault a successful investigation on a stranger abduction."
Marc Klaas of the Klaas Kids Foundation says it's more important than ever to locate Sierra's remains before the suspect in her killing, Antolin Garcia-Torres can trade the location of her body for potential leniency.
"To be able to take the power that this guy currently holds over us to make a deal for his miserable disgusting life and to put him where he belongs which is behind some triple set of bars where he can never do harm to another living person," Klaas tells KRON 4's Kate Thompson.
Klaas says another big reason to find her, so Torres won't get a plea deal, a deal to lead investigators to Sierra for a shorter prison sentence.
"We need to take that power away from him," says Klaas. "Then and only then can they can dispatch the guy to the bowels of hell where he belongs without stopping at go and collecting $200."
Tuesday morning, the principal of Ann Sobrato High School made a campus-wide announcement in which she urged students to try to stay positive. We talked with several students who told us they are trying to do just that, including one girl who told us she came nearly face to face with the suspect seconds before he was arrested.
"We pulled into the parking lot and that's when he walked past my window," said Sierra's schoolmate, D**** Hendrix, who happened to witness the arrest of suspect of Garcia-Torres Monday night. "The guy walked right past my window and he was like two inches from it. Then all of a sudden, all the undercover cops came and they were like, 'Get on the ground! Get on the ground!"'
Morgan Hill police on Wednesday said they are looking into the possibility Garcia Torres was involved in all three.
"The fact three of these happened in 2009 in such a short period of time, we're investigating and trying to see if he's responsible for all three," Morgan Hill police Sgt. Troy Hoefling said. "Very seldom do cases happen in such proximity (that) they are not related. But obviously we need to prove that."
A 21-year-old Morgan Hill man who was to be charged with the murder of missing teenager Sierra LaMar was expected to appear in court on Thursday afternoon, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.
Antolin Garcia-Torres, who was arrested Monday evening on suspicion of murder and kidnapping, was being held without bail at the Santa Clara County Main Jail on Wednesday. His arraignment was initially planned for Wednesday morning but was delayed, and he was scheduled to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
Sheriff's divers Wednesday were scheduled to probe the Uvas Reservoir, 10 miles southwest of the unincorporated neighborhood off Palm and Dougherty avenues where Sierra vanished March 16. Sgt. Jose Cardoza said that will extend to other area waterways throughout the week.
The KlaasKids Foundation, which since the disappearance has spearheaded a civilian volunteer search based at Burnett Elementary School in Morgan Hill, also planned to search the area Wednesday.
Marlene LaMar said her daughter, Sierra LaMar, would not have spent time with someone like Antolin Garcia-Torres, 21, the man Santa Clara County sheriff's investigators say kidnapped and killed her. Sierra was last seen March 16 in her home near Morgan Hill. Her body has not been found.
"This is not a person I would ever associate my daughter talking to or feeling comfortable entering a vehicle with," LaMar said at a news conference. "I've seen a lot of the friends that she's hung out with, and I would never guess that she would willingly get into a car with somebody."
Sierra's family is hoping that Garcia-Torres tells detectives where they can find Sierra. But if not, at least at this point, the family says it is not willing to make any deals for that information.
There will be no search this Saturday at the request of Sierra's parents, who say they want the volunteers to have the holiday weekend off.
Even though investigators now say Antolin Garcia-Torres killed the 15-year-old Morgan Hill girl, her friends don't want to believe it.
"We just all had our hopes up, hoping and praying that she's still going to be alive- they still have no proof that she isn't alive so hopes are still up," says V******* Reyes, Sierra's friend.
His father is in jail, suspected of sexual abuse. His brother died of alcoholism. Antolin Garcia Torres was considered to be the good son, the one who was fiercely protective of his family, the one trying to work his way out of the cramped trailer in Morgan Hill he shared with four others, including his pregnant wife and toddler daughter.
"With everything that happened to us, he stayed real strong," his sister, Lucero Garcia, 26, said Wednesday. "He was trying to save up for his own place, especially with the new baby coming."
Elizabeth Ruano, 19, who lives in the trailer next door, said Garcia-Torres and his family are quiet and keep to themselves. However, that was not the case with Garcia-Torres' previous home.
Before moving to the trailer park, Garcia-Torres and his family were thrown out of a Morgan Hill farmhouse in the summer of 2010 for keeping pit bulls on the property and allowing non-tenants to stay there, one of their landlords said. She spoke on condition of anonymity, saying she was concerned for her privacy.
"They were the nightmare that never ended," the landlord said.
A 21-year-old Morgan Hill man was charged Thursday with the murder and kidnap of Sierra LaMar Thursday afternoon in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
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Garcia-Torres, who is being held without bail, said nothing at the brief court hearing. He was ordered back on May 31, and was referred to the public defender's office. His family, including his mother and sister, attended.
Neither of the LaMar parents were present.
"Our investigation is continuing," District Attorney Jeff Rosen said outside the Hall of Justice. "My office and law enforcement, aided by many volunteers in this county, continue to devote all available resources to finding her body. We hope that will soon give her family some measure of peace."
While the charge makes Garcia Torres eligible for the death penalty, Rosen said he will not decide whether to pursue a capital case until his office completes a lengthy review, including a conversation with the suspect's lawyer and the victim's family.
A formal arraignment for the suspect was set for May 31.
In an effort to maximize the resources to locate Sierra, the Sheriff's Office is encouraging the community and rural property owners to continue searches of land, water shorelines, creeks, streams, private property wells, large containers and abandoned sheds or outhouse structures.
A large crowd of supporters of Sierras family, including a group of volunteers who have helped search for the missing teen since late March, gathered outside the courthouse after the hearing. Some carried large posters depicting Sierras face, with messages written on them such as, Sierra we love u!
I have children, and a big heart, and I would love to have somebody to help me, said Jennifer Stultz of San Jose, who has volunteered to search for Sierra for several weeks. Im not giving up hope that we can bring her home safe. I believe shes alive.
Rochelle Torres, who knows Garcia Torres (the two are not related) from when they attended Central together, doesnt believe police got the right suspect.
He was a sweetheart, said Torres, 20, who graduated from Central in 2010. I dont think he did it. If you had a problem hed be there and talk to you. He was always there if you needed somebody to talk to.
Outside of school, Garcia Torres liked to work, and spent a lot of time with his infant and girlfriend at the time.
I would never have expected him to be any part of this, Rochelle Torres said.
After a suspect was arrested in connection with the disappearance of 15-year-old Sierra LaMar, the communitys reaction has ranged from shock to relief to sorrow.
As news circulated that Antolin Garcia Torres, 21 of Morgan Hill, was arrested and charged Thursday with murder and kidnapping, students at Sobrato High School where Sierra was a sophomore, were shaken.
Sobrato junior *advertiser censored***** Lunn, 17, said Tuesday that the latest news has had a profound effect on the student body.
A lot of people were broken down about it, Lunn said. There was actually a girl that left my first-period class crying. A lot of people were already emotionally shocked by this.
Police are investigating a body, possibly that of a woman, found inside a trash can in an upscale Pleasanton neighborhood Thursday.
The age and gender of the body have not yet been positively determined by the Alameda County Coroner's Office, and police offered no immediate details.