USCG: SAR working low altitude FLIR regarding Sandra Cantu case.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

USCG: SAR working low altitude FLIR regarding Sandra Cantu case.

UPDATE: MISSING - Sandra Cantu body found - Sugar Cut slough container found to be opened

Sandra Cantu dead - body found in pond

Update: 10:15 04-06-09 - Tonight after Tracy Police announced Body discovery a large contingent of law enforcement personnel has re-converged on the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park. Many citizens have gathered at the entrance which is blocked by City of Tracy police department. Residents are not being allowed to enter or leave.

Update: Police have released a video that shows Sandra Cantu, as she skipped down the street in the mobile home park on March 27.

Video on YouTube - Link

Tracy police have released a color surveillance video from Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park, which shows missing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu.

The 18-second clip from March 27 — the day she disappeared — shows Sandra jumping around with her arms in the air, slowing down to walk, then running her fingers through her hair as she walks off screen. She appears to be leaving a driveway and walking past a porch directly under the surveillance camera.

The video shows Sandra walking away from the mobile home park's only exit, on West Clover Road.

Lt. Jeremy Watney, Tracy police spokesperson, would not say where or at what time the video was recorded. He said investigators analyzed the clip thoroughly and determined that what appeared to be a backpack or purse on her shoulder was just her shadow.

Update: Saturday search - More than 300 searchers and volunteers fanned out across Tracy and beyond to look for missing Sandra Cantu beginning this morning. Latest Missing Person Flier - Link

Breaking news: 04-03-09 20:30 hrs - Heavy U.S.C.G SAR OP's Northeast of Tracy, California, Low altitude C-130 USGC SAR planes .

A U.S. Coast Guard C-130 airplane flies above Tracy Friday during a night search of Tracy.
Photo credit: Glenn Moore/Tracy Press

According to markings planes appear to be United States Coast Guard working into the evening search pattern seemed to be centered just west of the I205 I5 in the Paradise Cut area of San Joaquin County. At approximately 8:30 pm a helicopter was stationary positioned over the Paradise Cut area while Coast Guard plane orbited above the area, at times traveling at a very low altitude. Google Map - Link

Update: Friday, 03 April 2009 - Suspect questioned, two vehicles and computers pulled from home: A 44-year-old mobile home resident agreed to go with police while they searched his home today.

Debra and David Slayter attended a candlelight vigil earlier this week at the mobile home park. Glenn Moore/Tracy Press

Police this afternoon drove off with David Slayter, 44, after searching his home at space No. 43 in the mobile home park where an 8-year-old Tracy girl went missing exactly a week ago.

FBI agents and Tracy detectives pulled items from Slayter's home in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park and packed them into a white crime-scene truck. They towed two of the Slayters cars as well. A caravan of at least seven trucks and detectives’ cars pulled into the neighborhood shortly before 2 p.m. today.

FBI Evidence Response Team members arrive at the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park as a search warrant is served for one of the residents homes. Glenn Moore/Tracy Press

Slayter voluntarily got in a police car about 15 minutes after investigators arrived, said Tracy police spokesman Lt. Jeremy Watney, but police declined to disclose where they went to talk.

Slayter was identified through a newspaper photograph that shows him and his wife, Debra, in front of their home, and another photo of the couple at a candlelight vigil.

Slayter’s name also comes up in an Internet search with an inactive Web site called www.moneymansvault.com, which indicates he lives at 812 W. Clover Road, No. 43, in Tracy.

Tracy Press story - link

Missing Child: Tracy, Ca - Info Reward - Missing 8-year-old Sandra Cantu

Reward for information has grown to $22,165 thanks to donations from the public.

Sacramento bounty hunter Leonard Padilla has offered $10,000 for her safe return of Sandra by midnight Sunday, “no questions asked.”.

Sandra is 4 feet tall and weighs 45 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. She was wearing a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt and black leggings. She was reported missing at 7:53 p.m. Friday, and a search was started 15 minutes later. She was last seen around 4 p.m. Friday.

Update: 04-02-09 - Investigators will search Old River this afternoon to see if they can find anything that would help them find an 8-year-old Tracy girl missing now for nearly six full days. (Google map Old River - Link)

Meanwhile, Tracy police and volunteers will continue digging through the trash of everyone in the city through the weekend, and keep pursuing every one of the 569 leads that have come in since little Sandra Cantu went missing on Friday afternoon from her home in Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park.

Investigators refuse to say what sort of evidence they’ve found so far, but police said that what was found has helped narrow down the case.

“From videotapes to psychics, there is no single lead that is ignored until it is investigated,” said Tracy police Lt. Jeremy Watney today at a morning press conference.

Update: 04-02-09 - Father interviewed by police, proclaims innocence, states he has had no contact with her in over a year
Daniel Cantu, said today that he hasn’t seen his daughter in a year.

“Did I take my daughter? No,” Cantu said. “But I wish I did. I wish I had my daughter. At least I’d know she’s warm … I’d know that she’s fed … I’d know that she’s okay.”

Cantu, 37, is a Tracy native who attended Tracy High School has lived in Mexicali, Mexico, for the past year. He works as a saw operator for the National Beef Packing Company in Brawley, about two hours east of San Diego. The company declined to talk about Cantu. Cantu was in town over the weekend, left, and said he has been in Tracy since Tuesday. Tracy police questioned him Wednesday at the police department, where a friend dropped him off.
Source: Tracy Press - Link
Update: 04-02-09 - Family and friends of Sandra Cantu have given police some recent photos of her — from her March birthday, Christmas and the Fourth of July 2008.