PRESS CONFERENCE
29TH DECEMBER
SHERIFF - Good afternoon, we're out here at the scene of our mobile command post and we're stepping up operations. You know, up to this point, we've been relying upon the school to allow us access, and the school's been great partners, but at a certain point we see that, you know, we don't want to interfere with their operations either, and so we've now set up our command post again. They've been gracious enough to use the parking lot. That way we can come out and do what we need to do without disturbing their ongoing operations, but as of now, as of the last few days, we've been talking about the lack of video from the community, up to this point the only thing that we had was - we had some videos and stills from her driveway, from the young lady's driveway, and what we believed was her, right around 7 a.m. Yesterday, late yesterday we were made aware of a
second video that somebody from the neighborhood here was on their way to work about 7 a.m. about same time, and saw what they believed may have been her, on a dashcam. This person had a dashcam operating in their vehicle, they shared that video with us. And again, at present, I'm not able to say with 100% certainty that this is, this is the young lady in the picture, but it does certainly have the clothing description on this pedestrian certainly does match up with what she was wearing at the time. And so, you know, we're sharing that information, that video, with you all in hopes that somebody may have, may have collected similar video. Up to this point, really, this was the best direction of flight that we were able to develop.
Again, at first, all we had was video right there, right around the residence. And so now, if this is indeed her, we've got what we believe to be a good direction of flight. And so what it looks like is that back over this way, is where the residence is; it looks like she may have come out onto Wild Horse Parkway and taken a left and was actually heading this general direction, when a motorist, driving to work, passed her and was able to capture the video. Again, we'll share it with you all, she is wearing what we believe this young lady was wearing about the time that she was last seen - light blue pajama shorts, if you will, and a dark colored top. And so we're asking anybody, again, with any information to please give us a call; 210-335-6000, you can also email us at
[email protected] and what we're asking is, once again, folks who are in the community - if you've got any surveillance camera video, or if you've got a surveillance camera that maybe you haven't had an opportunity to check, up until this point, please make it a point to look. Again, the last video that we have, it's about 7 a.m. Christmas Eve. morning. But you know, again, even if you don't live here in this immediate neighborhood, maybe you live two or three communities over, hopefully it doesn't cost you much more than time to just look through your surveillance camera video from later that day and let us know and let us be the judge of it. What we don't want is somebody to go "well, I'm not 100% sure that it's her, it's just a video of somebody... the top of somebody's body, walking up my street", show it to us, send it to us, let us be the judge of whether it's something usable or not. What we don't want you to do is feel silly calling us, and in reality, you're holding on to something that could help us out with this case. Any questions to this point?
REPORTER - What resources do you have right now? is the FBI involved?
SHERIFF - The FBI has been involved, up to this point. You know, FBI is always a good partner with us, and so right now they've been helping us out with going through some digital devices, some digital evidence, enhancing video, things of that nature. Homeland Security has also been helping us out with regard to checking outbound flights, border crossings, not that we have any direct information that would lead us to believe that she left the country. But again, we would be remiss if we didn't check everything. And so, at present, there's nothing to share with regard to that, but again, we're thankful for our federal partners for giving us access to their databases that they have.
REPORTER - At this time, do you believe that she walked away on her own?
SHERIFF - At this point, that's the prevailing theory based upon the video that we have. Unless we have evidence to show otherwise, we believe that she did walk away from the residence on her own.
REPORTER - Any reason for that?
SHERIFF - No, I mean, at this point, look, we've got several different theories working and we've got to... the theories that we're working upon run the whole gamut of possibilities. You know, we do have, unfortunately, some some indications of suicidal ideations from this young lady in the past. We do know that there was some depression issues in the past, but as a young person, what young person doesn't have bouts of depression at a certain point? So we can't necessarily afford to just say, "Oh, well, that must be what it is", we've got to consider all possibilities, from disappearing wilfully to the possibility of self harm to somebody may have taken her. Maybe, you know, after this video, somebody may have taken her, and so we've got to consider all possibilities at this point, unfortunately for us, we can't start narrowing that down until some evidence takes us to that and we're not there yet.
REPORTER - What areas are being searched right now?
SHERIFF - Right now, physically, we're searching close to this area here, but as we're able to and as more resources are coming online, we're able to expand out a bit more. We've actually got a cadet class that's out here that's physically searching. One of our law enforcement cadet classes is out here searching. Mounted patrol is out on the ground as well, the drones, the dogs, we've got some volunteer search groups that are out, kind of doing their own thing, coordinating with us to the extent possible. But you know, we're concentrating our efforts on this immediate area.
REPORTER - You mentioned in the past that you believe she's in imminent danger, can you elaborate as to why?
SHERIFF - Sure, with regard to the imminent danger, what led to the CLEAR alert was that the information that we had that there may have been some suicidal ideations in the past, some attempts to self harm in the past were a consideration. And so again, it's just one of the many theories that we're exploring at this point. But you know, obviously a young person like this, small in stature, very young, very impressionable, I would say, anytime they're away from home and we don't know where they are, there's always an immediate danger there.
REPORTER - The dashcam video - how far away is that from her house?
SHERIFF - Oh, the dashcam video that we saw is maybe a couple blocks from her home, maybe two blocks at the most. I'm just guesstimating there.
REPORTER - Holding anything?
SHERIFF - No, she just appears to be walking by herself, and, to the person that captured it, it didn't really mean much until such time as they put two and two together and said "wait a second on my commute, I saw somebody" and look, she took a chance. The person that brought this to us took a chance and hopefully it'll pay off for us and help us, at least it's given us a better direction of flight to be able to concentrate our efforts on.
REPORTER -
Asks a question in Spanish
SHERIFF - The video that I'm going to be sharing with you guys, I just mentioned in Spanish, the date is way off, the time is way off, for whatever reason, the lady that shared it with us, the couple that shared it with us I should say, they know that this video was captured on this day. They were able to attest to that fact and they know that she leaves for work every morning around 7 a.m. and so even though the date and time is off, she's fairly certain, or very certain that that video capture was right around 7 a.m. just after the time we saw her at her driveway.
REPORTER - (
inaudible)
SHERIFF - Well, it gives us the direction of flight, right? You know, again, to that point, all we had was her driveway, and really didn't know from there. This at least gives us an idea, so okay, it was this general direction coming from the residence itself. But with that being said, we still won't say with 100% certainty it's got to be on this side. Well, we're still going to consider all things, but obviously it's going to steer us a little bit more strongly toward this direction, this general direction. But again, once she hit that roundabout that's back here, she could have gone anywhere from there. So, it does narrow it down a bit, but just not 100%.
REPORTER - So we were told she goes on walks, that's normal, so where she was - was that a normal place for her to go on a walk?
SHERIFF - It's along her normal route. From my understanding, this young lady was a bit of a, or is a bit of a fitness enthusiast. She was, very much into going to the gym and very much into into walking. But again, a normal part of her route.
REPORTER - You mentioned digital evidence and digital devices, and that the FBI is assisting you with - can you elaborate on what those devices in evidence is?
SHERIFF - Sure, she left behind a cell phone, which as you know, a young person that age, or even a not so young person - who leaves her cell phone behind, right?, it's unheard of, but she left behind a cell phone, she left behind an iPad and so we've had the opportunity to go through some of that digital evidence, again, thanks to the help from our friends at the FBI. You know, I can't part with too much from what was gleaned from that, but we were able to glean some information from it.
REPORTER - As far as checking flight and ports of entry - are you doing that because something indicated she might have gone that way or...?
SHERIFF - No, there was no indicator that she left, but it's something we have to - we'd be remiss if we didn't check, because, you know, the last thing we want to do is spend a whole bunch of time searching this immediate area, and then "oh, she flew to Mexico". There's no indicator here that that occurred, but we had to check. I mean, just like we had to check.. I can tell you, one of the things that I personally saw to yesterday is, you know, she's a US citizen. This young lady is a US citizen, but we still checked with ICE to see, "do you have anybody by this name in your custody?". Again, not any indicator at all that ICE may have picked her up, but we know that ICE is operating heavily everywhere right now, and unfortunately, you know being a US citizen is no guarantee that you're not going to get swept up in something. Thankfully, that didn't lead us anything, they indicated that they did not have her in custody, but again, we would have been remiss if we didn't at least ask that question.
REPORTER - The people in the community, what can they do besides (
inaudible) video, what volunteer efforts are underway (
inaudible)?
SHERIFF - Well, so the volunteer search groups are kind of doing their thing right now, we would just appreciate it if they coordinate with us. You know, far be it from us to say, don't, don't search. If they feel it in their hearts to do that, we'd appreciate them coordinating with us to let us know where they're going to be. You know, we certainly welcome the help if they so choose. But we would ask that they see law enforcement searching a particular area, that they just kind of stay out of that area. The last thing we want to do is be tripping over each other. But certainly, if they feel that it's in their hearts to search a certain area, we'd appreciate that.
REPORTER - Have you found any relevant evidence on these ground searches?
SHERIFF - No, well, look, I certainly wouldn't be the type to discount anything at this point. I can tell you, we haven't been made aware of any evidence that we would say is meaningful. But again, with that being said, if any of these search parties come across anything that they feel is relevant, call us, you know, call us; what we would recommend, or what we would ask is that they not touch it, because if it does happen to end up being some sort of evidence, we don't want to have that chain of custody tainted in any way. So if you happen to see something out there, call us 210-335-6000.
REPORTER - Is it your concern that we're now on day 5 without seeing her?
SHERIFF - Look, always calls for concern. You know, young folks, a lot of things can happen to a young person in a matter of hours. So yeah, the fact that we're 5 days out and counting, is certainly cause for concern. A lot of things can happen to this young lady, that's why it's incumbent on us, on this community, for everybody to come together with the objective of getting her back to her family, sooner rather than later.
REPORTER - Can you tell us what agencies are helping outside of (
inaudible) on the ground or is it just (
inaudible)?
SHERIFF - Right now we're the only law enforcement agency out here on the ground that I'm aware of. We have coordinated with SAPD and with Holetes, PD, obviously both great partners, because some of the search areas border their city limits. I'm certain that they'd come out and help us if we ask them to. But for right now, it's just BCSO, the FBI has been helping us out, as I mentioned, with some of their technologies, and then HSI has been helping us with databases and things like that.
REPORTER - Can you confirm if that picture in front of her car is specifically her? and why... some people are saying they are leggings...
SHERIFF - I can't confirm for certainty that that's her. We believe that's her and that's the premise that we're operating under.
REPORTER - Will you be putting out the footage in front of the..?
SHERIFF - Yes, we've shared it with these guys.
Ok, thank you all so much.