In 2002, Laura Ayala, just 13 years old at the time, walked no more than 100 feet from her southeast Houston apartment to a convenience store to buy a newspaper. She was never seen again.
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Police began an intense search of the area and volunteers handed out flyers and canvassed the neighborhood. Gay Smither, mother of Laura Smither who was abducted and murdered in 1997, came to the scene with the Laura Recovery Center to help find Ayala.
The case also marked the first time Tim Miller and the Texas EquuSearch volunteer organization stepped in to assist on a Houston missing person's case.
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In 2002, police arrested three men in connection with the murders of several women on the East End. Police found DNA in the men's van that matched Laura Ayala but couldn't find enough evidence to charge the men in the case.
Two of those men, Walter Sorto, and Edgardo Cubas, were sentenced to death for the murders of Roxana Capulin and Maria Rangel. Eduardo Navarro, who was a juvenile at the time and believed to be the getaway driver, was eventually charged with another crime and sentenced to juvenile detention for 13 years.
