The search for missing 22-year-old Jolissa Fuentes will soon be boosted by the same team of volunteer divers who discovered a car and body in the search for Kiely Rodni.
Speaking on Monday about the discovery connected to 16-year-old Kiely’s disappearance in Truckee, California, volunteer diving team Adventures With Purpose (AWP) said they would soon join the search for Ms Fuentes, who vanished about four hours away in Selma the day after Kiely.
“We will be taking the next two days to properly debrief, decompress and prepare for our next case, which is 22-year-old Jolissa Fuentes in Selma, California,” said AWP’s Doug Bishop in a press briefing.
Ms Fuentes’ family and police say she was last seen at an AM/PM gas station on 7 August driving a 2011 Hyundai and that she has not been in touch since. A police search has thus far proved ineffective in finding her.
The Fuentes family had criticised police for a lack of progress in the search, which was taking place about 320 miles south of Truckee and the investigation into Kiely’s disappearance.
Ms Fuentes’s father told the New York Post last week: “What I don’t understand is, if you’ve got all these resources and other agencies involved — police say the FBI is getting involved — we should have something.”
“These are some of our top, trained agencies in the United States, supposedly,” Mr Fuentes added.
News of the discovery of a car and body connected to Kiely on Sunday has also raised questions about the police search for the missing teenager, who was last seen at a party on 6 August near Truckee.
The AWP volunteer diving team said on Sunday that they were able to make a significant discovery within minutes of entering a lake already searched by police, who had allocated nearly 20,000 personnel hours to the Rodni case.
Mr Bishop also thanked law enforcement agencies including the FBI for working with his team of divers, who are known for their work on missing person cases. To date, the group claims to have solved 23 missing person cases.
