Woman, 8-month-old girl from California vanish after routine doctor visit

Yahoo

a day ago

A 36-year-old mother of four from Sacramento County and her 8-month-old daughter vanished more than two weeks ago after a doctor's appointment in Fresno, leaving family members desperate and law enforcement without any leads.
Whisper Owen, 36, and her daughter, Sandra McCarty, were last seen on July 15, according to a news release from the Fresno County Sheriff's Office.
The pair left Elk Grove, where Owen and her partner live with their three other children, at around 4 a.m. that day to make the approximately 160-mile drive to Fresno. Owen's mother, Vickie Torres, told the Los Angeles Times that the 36-year-old stopped at her house before the appointment to change Sandra's diaper and then checked in with the doctor's office at 8:30 a.m.
After the 8-month-old's doctor visit, Owen and her daughter visited her brother's Fresno home until about 2:45 p.m. that afternoon before once again stopping at her mother's and, eventually, leaving Fresno around 5 p.m.
At around 8 p.m., a license plate reader in Atwater, approximately 65 miles from Fresno, spotted Owen's silver 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer, where Torres believes she likely stopped to use the restroom and, maybe, get baby formula for Sandra, The Times reported.
Surveillance footage from a nearby smoke shop in Atwater showed Owen changing Sandra's diaper in the parking lot about a half hour before, authorities said.
No one has seen or heard from the pair since.
Owen's mother said it's not uncommon for her to stay in Fresno for days at a time, so when she didn't hear from her daughter's partner the night that she never made it home, it didn't occur to her to be worried.
It wasn't until three days later that Owen's partner, who has not been identified, called Torres to ask about Owen.
'So then everything started to get scary at that point,' Torres told The Times.
The Fresno County Sheriff's Office said that, so far, no information has been found to explain the pair's disappearance, and as of this week, the Fresno Police Department's Missing Persons Unit said there were no new developments in the case.
In a statement to The Times, the police department said investigators haven't found anything that would suggest foul play was involved.
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Frustrated with the lack of headway in the case, Torres said she reached out to the Sacramento Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for help, though she added that they have not been responsive.
Family members, including Owen's partner, have been searching the roads between Fresno and Sacramento, putting up flyers and posting information about the distressing situation on social media.
Torres told The Times that Owen's other children are 'losing their minds' and that her daughter would never just run off and leave her other kids behind.
Owen is described as 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighing around 145 pounds with blue eyes and brown hair, while her daughter Sandra is described as 1 foot 10 inches tall, weighing around 17 pounds with green eyes and brown hair.
Officials with the Fresno County Sheriff's Department urged anyone who sees Owen and her daughter to immediately call 911.
'It just makes it really hard for me as her mother to shut my brain off and not constantly imagine what could've happened to her,' Torres told The Times. 'And that beautiful little baby. God, I hope, whatever happened, she's with her mama.'
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