06x17 - Come Home Sierra

[bunniefuu]

Narrator: a 15-year-old girl in a new town...

She was struggling with the move.

...disappears without a trace.

I knew something was not right.

Something bad happened.

Narrator: with no witnesses to turn to...

What do you have? What can you look for?

...only the cameras can piece together what happened.

We knew at that point that this

Was a serious crime and probable abduction.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

-Yo -whoo whoo!

-Yo -whoo whoo!

[ Indistinct ]

[ Mouthing words ]

Narrator: 15-year-old sierra is the joyful heartbeat of

The lamar family.

Marlene: sierra was always very charismatic.

Her gift was to lift people up

When they were down.

She tended to have this great, beautiful smile that

People were attracted to, and she liked the attention.

Steve: she's outgoing, fun-loving,

Always was goofing around with her friends.

But then also she had kind of a soft, serious side.

Every young girl always has a little bit of insecurities,

But for the most part, she was confident

And didn't let what other people thought change who she was

Or how she acted.

Narrator: sierra grew up in fremont,

But five months ago, she moved with her mom 35 miles away

To a new town.

Marlene: I got divorced and met somebody,

And we moved to morgan hill.

I just wanted the change.

Um, I liked that it was a big house

And, you know, a fresh start.

The separation between our parents

Wasn't easy for either of us.

You know, sierra and my mom definitely had their ups

And downs.

If they disagreed about something, would fight out.

Steve: I think if you get to the root of those fights,

It was just that problem of not wanting to move down there,

Wanting to stay in fremont where her friends were.

Channah: she was struggling with the move,

And there were a lot of times where sierra would just be

Texting me, saying, like, "man, like,

"You know, like, I wish I were in fremont,

Like, this is just..."

Like, she would just express her feelings as any



La la la la la la.

Narrator: like every typical teenager, sierra

Is addicted to social media.

She would take my laptop and literally record

So many videos of her just, like,

Doing the randomest things.

[ Laughing ]

[ Vocalizing ]

Pfbbt!

It's honestly so hard to explain how goofy she was

If you just didn't see her in person.

[ Sighing noise ]

[ Sighing noise ] [ sighing noise ]

Narrator: it's 6 a.m. On friday morning,

And marlene is heading to work

As a physical therapist.

Marlene: before I left every morning,

I would tell her I love her.

We were in a new house in a new town.

I just felt like I needed her to know that she's not alone,

And I left for work.

She would normally walk out the cul-de-sac,

And then there was a bus stop about 500 feet away.

It was on, like, farmland.

The high school was about five or 10 minutes away,

Driving time.

Narrator: at the end of her work day, marlene heads home.

Marlene: and every time I left the parking lot,

I would call her, and just kind of check in with her.

She was usually at school at the bus stop,

Waiting to be picked up, and she didn't answer.

I checked all the rooms in the house.

She wasn't taking a nap in her room.

I was a little angry, like,

Why isn't she answering the phone?

Is it because she's with a friend

And she didn't let me know?

Narrator: marlene contacts the school and finds

That sierra did not attend that day.

She immediately calls sierra's dad, steve,

In fremont, but he has not heard from her either.

Steve: she sounded mad, that she assumed that sierra

Had went with her friends somewhere

After school and didn't tell her.

We talked a little bit and decided that she should ask

Around and try to contact

Some of her friends to see if, you know, she was with them.

I said that I would hang up and come down there to

Morgan hill.

I got a call from her mom,

Which was odd -- all I could hear was her sobbing.

And she was asking if she was with me, and immediately,

I was like, "no, she's not."

I don't think I'd received, you know,

A single text from her that day.

I was extremely frantic and worried.

They kept dialing sierra, in panic mode because

I just kept hoping that she would answer the phone.

[ Phone ringing ]

It's going straight to her voice mail.

Marlene: I knew something was not right.

So I contacted the police.

Dispatcher: she gets dressed.

We get so many missing person reports,



Their parent, they're staying at a friend's house,

And they don't want to be in communication.

And within a couple hours or so,

They call their parents or they show up back home.

Marlene: they sent a police officer to the house,

And he started asking about is there

A reason why she would have been angry?

That she might have left? You know.

Wanted to know about her activities in morgan hill

And who she hung out with.

And then he was explaining that you have to

Be missing for so many hours to be considered missing.

Danielle: I was just hoping she was with

A boy and didn't want to tell us and that

She was just being a rebellious teenager.

But I thought it was weird, you know?

Why wouldn't she respond to me, at least?

♪♪

Narrator: it's now been 24 hours

Since sierra was last seen.

She is officially logged as a missing person.

Investigators canvass the area and interview sierra's friends.

Channah: I started to realize it was getting serious

When the police interviewed me, or interrogated me, rather,

About her running away.

They immediately jumped to that because of how unhappy

She in morgan hill.

Julian: I interviewed all of her friends.

They were all very afraid, very scared.

And I remember asking them,

"What do you think happened to sierra?

Do you think she ran away?"

Narrator: detectives now start to build

A picture of sierra's exact movements that day.

When we respond to a missing person call, we first --

We want to establish a timeline.

When was the last time the missing person

Was seen by somebody,

So we can establish that time -- we knew that marlene

Saw sierra in her room at six o'clock in the morning.

And about 7:10, she sent her last text message to a friend.

Narrator: in sierra's last message,

She arranged to meet up with a friend

Before school to exchange homework and makeup.

So it showed she had plans. It didn't show...

A child that was planning to run away.

Narrator: ready for school, sierra leaves the house.

She was due to walk to the bus stop to catch the bus

At 7:25.

Narrator: sierra has less than half a mile walk

From her door to the bus stop.

So we started looking for any type of surveillance

In the area.

Narrator: but her bus stop is in the middle of nowhere.

There are no cameras -- except for one.

Julian: the bus that sierra rode on

Had a surveillance system on it.

Narrator: and it gives detectives their first

Look at what happened to sierra.

[ Chord strikes ]

Narrator: investigators searching for missing



Hope the camera from her school bus will help find her.

Julian: sierra's school bus actually came equipped with

Surveillance video

That would show everyone getting on and off the bus.

Narrator: detectives load up the playback from the morning

She went missing and cue it to 7:25 a.m.,

When sierra is usually picked up.

♪♪

She's the only student to use this bus stop,

And so far, there is no sign of her.

They switch to the interior camera

As sierra's stop approaches.

The bus pulls up at approximately 7:25

In the morning at the bus stop,

And there's no sierra at all.

She never made it to that bus stop.

She was never picked up.

♪♪

Narrator: after messaging her friend at 7:11 a.m.,

Sierra left the house but never reached the bus stop.

Ed: what the video from the school bus established was

That sierra never got onto the school bus.

It fixed a small window from when her mother left her

At home to when she should have been on the school bus.

Narrator: detectives hope that sierra's online activity may

Give a clue to where she went.

He wanted to know if she was active with social media,

And I said yes,

And he wanted to know specifically what accounts --

That would be twitter and facebook.

Julian: it's unbelievable how much information

Is on social media.

Especially when you're 15, 16 years old,

Social media is pretty much your life.

Sierra lamar woke up, got ready for school,

And about seven, she took a picture,

A selfie picture, on her computer.

Narrator: she posts it to social media.

This is the last known image of sierra.

What do you have? What can you look for?

Now we had a photograph of sierra

Wearing that sweatshirt the day she disappeared.

This is the clothing sierra was wearing.

Laurie: it added to the seriousness,

Knowing that we have a facebook image

Of her dressed and ready,

Wearing a sharks jersey, and then nothing after that.

Narrator: at just after 7 a.m.,

Sierra's social media activity abruptly stops.

This young girl was on social media every single day,

Hours at a time.

So for her to go off the grid completely, it wasn't right.

Narrator: detectives are starting to suspect

This isn't just another teenage runaway.

♪♪

We knew at that point that this was

A serious crime and probable abduction.

Marlene: I never believed that she would run away,

And she wouldn't do something that hurtful to her

Immediate family.

So I knew, deep down, that was never the case.

Narrator: local and national media

Take an interest in sierra's disappearance.

We can't confirm that she voluntarily ran away,

Nor can we confirm that there was a crime involved.

I can't believe that she would not contact

Her friends and let them know that she's okay

And -- and do this.

She would never want us to go through all this pain.

Laurie: important in any investigation

Is support from the media.

They're putting the information out,

And potentially, we could get information

That would be helpful.

We have to do everything that we can to solve the case,

To find sierra.

Narrator: with media spreading the word, police begin

A large-scale search centered on sierra's home.

Studies have shown that you have to find them fast,

And on that saturday, we had approximately 300

Mutual aid searchers in the area.

Narrator: while officers and volunteers search,

Detectives follow other potential leads.

Ed: in this case, there are approximately 250 sex offenders

In a five-mile circumference around where sierra lived.

Narrator: they need to be tracked down and interviewed.

We had, I believe, possibly



We started with a mile out first and then increased

A mile further each time

And contacted each and every one of

Those sex offenders that we could locate.

Narrator: but it's a dead end.

Julian: we were able to clear all of them.

None of them fit that time period.

Their alibis were solid.

Narrator: then quinonez receives a call that shakes the case.

Steve: I decided that I should tell him

About my charge and conviction that I had.

I was a registered sex offender, and, um...

And that... [ Clears throat ]

I wanted him to know that instead of him, you know,

Doing the background check and finding out anyway.

I had thought it would be better

And more efficient for the -- for the investigation to, um,

Focus more on -- on sierra and finding sierra.

Narrator: steve lamar was placed on the offenders register in



He served a one-year sentence for the misdemeanor.

Laurie: he lost a daughter,

So he was very, very cooperative

Through all phases of the investigation.

And that made it very easy for us

To do solid verifications on his alibi.

Narrator: detectives confirm that steve was at work



He is eliminated as a suspect.

Along with family and friends

Back in fremont,

He does all he can to find his daughter.

Steve: I wanted to find some kind of evidence or something,

But I didn't want to find sierra, um,

I was still hoping she was alive at that point.

Please come home.

You're not in trouble. Everyone...

Everyone wants to see you.

♪♪

Narrator: in morgan hill,

The community also comes together

To find one of their own.

Danielle: we never expected so many people to want to help,

Donate, people that also

Have daughters of their own, sisters of their own.

They just felt the need to help, and it helped

Our family a lot to see so much support.

It's just weird that none of us have any idea,

Or, like...

Can think of, like, anything

That she's, like, recently told us.

Everyone deep down had hoped that we would find her.

Narrator: sierra has vanished.

But suddenly, at 3:45 a.m.

On that saturday, her phone sparks to life.

We started getting some intermittent pings

On the phone at a certain cell tower

About a mile away from sierra's residence,

But it would come on for a second, and it was gone.

Okay, we're missing something.

Was sierra trying to turn her phone on?

Was the person, the abductor, taking the phone away from her?

We didn't know, but we did know that

That phone registered a ping.

I know we're so close. What could it be?

Narrator: the pinging cell tower is

Half a mile north of sierra's home.

Detectives immediately direct the search team to the area.

Julian: it's a large, open field with tall grass.

It had rained all night the night before,

And the search team located the phone.

It was in the middle of this field, lying there.

Marlene: they asked me to identify her phone

When they recovered it.

I immediately burst into tears, and my heart sank,

Because I knew that

She would not voluntarily toss her phone.

She was pretty much attached to that phone.

Danielle: that really hit us.

Sierra is not somewhere she wants to be

Right now if she left her phone.

Julian: after further investigation

And analysis of the phone, we believe that

A liquid intrusion

Was tricking the phone to thinking it was gonna charge,

And it would turn on and then shut back off.

Narrator: finding sierra's discarded phone

Is the last proof needed that she has been abducted.

♪♪

Detectives go back to the videos from

The school bus to search for more clues.

Julian: you have a 15-year-old child female

Walking this distance.

She does this every day, monday through friday.

Predators pay attention to this,

And they look for an opportunity.

Narrator: if sierra was being followed,

Could her abductor be caught on camera?

Narrator: 15-year-old sierra lamar

Has been missing for over 30 hours.

Detectives are checking surveillance footage

From her school bus for signs that she was abducted.

They first check the footage from

The day before she went missing.

Bus arrives at 7:25.

Sierra's at the bus stop wearing a red converse,

The doors open,

And sierra gets on the bus, says good morning,

Has a small conversation with the bus driver.

She has a seat, and the bus takes off.

She was like any other kid, just waiting for the bus.

Says hi, very friendly girl.

There was nothing there that struck me as a concern.

Narrator: detectives then forward the tape to 3:15 p.m.

When sierra arrives back home.

Julian: when the bus did drop her off,

There was a lot of communication from the people

On the bus.

[ Indistinct talking ]

Julian: saying goodbye to her. She was happy.

It was a normal day for her.

Narrator: they scour the footage from the rest of the week,

Looking for any sign that she is being followed.

♪♪

There was nothing striking us as

This child has problems.

Narrator: there's no sign of anyone following her.

Detectives are running out of leads.

♪♪

It's been two days since sierra disappeared.

Officers continue to canvass the area as local volunteers

Join the police to help bolster the search efforts.

Laurie: we talked to many, many people.

We were also doing forensic searches.

We were doing cellphone searches,

So there were a lot of tangents that really served

To eliminate a lot of people.

Narrator: then, finally, a breakthrough

From one of the search teams

Julian: they searched two miles from sierra's house.

They came across this rural road,

Where there were three buildings

Used as storage.

They found sierra's bag.

Inside the bag were all of sierra's clothing,

Shoes, socks, underwear,

Pants and all of her school belongings,

And it was the same sweatshirt that she took

That selfie picture on the day she disappeared.

So it was a huge find for us.

Narrator: sierra's clothes are swabbed for dna

And sent to the lab for analysis.

Julian: there was debris, not just dirt.

There was a form of lichen.

We had a botanist come in and explain this to us

And told us that this particular type of lichen

Grows in certain areas

And you need some sort of a water source

Close by -- that's how this grows.

There was also glass road beads that

Are used for reflection on a roadway.

So that's telling us sierra was drug down a road

And then through an area where this particular lichen grows.

We searched every pond in the area, sent up our helicopter

To search with infrared camera looking for a body,

Because bodies decomposing cast off heat.

The radius would be 300 miles,

About half the state of california.

We never found her.

♪♪

Narrator: sierra's family hold regular vigils.

Marlene: I had hope,

Just because I refused to believe that my daughter

Was dead.

I wouldn't believe she was gone

Until I saw her body.

I realized how important that was just to

Keep us going and keep our spirits up.

I still remember being hopeful

Somehow she would walk in

And have some kind of explanation.

Danielle: you feel a little bit helpless and wondering

How is this happening, like, is this real?

I still thought sierra's out there,

Like, someone has her or someone is with her.

Narrator: the results from the dna swabs

Taken from sierra's clothing have come back.

Dna evidence that was found on the pants

Indicates somebody else's bodily fluids were there.

They entered it into the codis system.

Julian: the crime lab came back identifying

A 21-year-old male from morgan hill.

Narrator: dna found on sierra lamar's

Discarded jeans has been identified.

Our dna match was to a 21-year-old

Arborist who used to work for safeway.

Narrator: the suspect is antolin garcia-torres.

It gave us someone that we believed

Had had no prior contact with sierra.

His dna should not have been there.

He was not a schoolmate. He was not a friend.

The fluid had been identified as seminal fluid, ej*cul*te.

It proves that he was in intimate contact

With those pants.

Narrator: detectives now have a suspect.

At that point, we really had to determine

Was he known to sierra?

Is he someone that she had come in contact with?

Just because you find dna is

Not enough to arrest someone for homicide.

We had to develop additional information that would

Show that he was the perpetrator of

This abduction.

Hoping that torres might still be holding sierra c*ptive,

They immediately set up 24-hour surveillance,

Wiretap torres's phone, and put a tracker on his car.

Laurie: we were holding out hopes

That we would find sierra alive.

Is he still holding her?

What are his everyday movements?

We began many different forms of surveillance

On antolin garcia-torres, because we wanted to

See if he would go somewhere where she might be.

Narrator: torres lives with his girlfriend

And their daughter in an rv park

Seven miles from sierra's home.

Posing as a couple,

Undercover officers move into an adjacent trailer.

♪♪

And they spent every minute of the day following him around,

Hoping she was still alive.

Maybe he would do something to lead us to her.

The trailer park where torres is staying

Gives detectives another potential lead.

We identified that the trailer park had

A surveillance camera capturing every vehicle

Coming and going.

Narrator: a single camera covers the entrance

To the trailer park.

Detectives cue up the footage to the morning of march 16th,

The day sierra disappeared.

As the sun rises, torres's distinctive

Red vw jetta leaves the park.

Julian: on the date of sierra's disappearance,

Antolin garcia-torres drove out

Of the trailer park at 8 a.m.

Narrator: sierra was abducted between 7:11 a.m.

And 7:25 a.m.

The trailer park footage appears to immediately clear torres.

He was still at home at the time,

But detectives make a vital discovery.

We were able to establish that camera had a live timestamp

Of one hour ahead.

A lot of people don't adjust

Their cameras to daylight savings time.

So the actual time when we saw antolin garcia-torres

Drive out, although the timestamp said 8 a.m.,

In fact, it's 7 a.m.

We know that sierra's

Last communication was at 7:10.

The drive from antolin's residence

To sierra's residence was between 10 to 15 minutes.

This would put antolin garcia-torres

Right in the location of where sierra was abducted

At the right time

When sierra would leave the residence to go catch her bus.

We knew he had a job, but we were able to

Obtain his timecard, and he did not work on that friday,

But he left like he would normally

Leave to go to work at 7 a.m.

Narrator: they fast forward and watch for

Torres's jetta to return home.

♪♪

And accounting for the one-hour error of the timestamp,

See it at 12:57 p.m.,

A window of five hours.

Julian: the timing was perfect for him to be there.

My gut feeling when I watched the video

Was that

This is looking more and more like

This young man is associated to this case.

[ Chord strikes ]

Narrator: it's been six days since detectives

Started surveillance on antolin garcia-torres.

A person who kidnaps and abducts somebody,

If they're going to keep them alive,

They are gonna keep them where they can

Go back and continue the abuse.

There was no evidence of that

Found by our detectives, our surveillance teams.

At this point, I do not believe she's alive.

We made a decision that we need to go talk to him.

We need to let him know that he's on our radar.

Narrator: quinonez and another detective go

To speak to torres at his trailer park.

Julian: we wanted to make a consensual encounter with him,

Let him control the interview.

Julian: this was a young man who was very confident,

c*ck, if you will.

He was looking through us like he was smarter than us,

Straight sociopath.

I doubt it, why?

That's the exact expression he gave.

And this is where torres separates himself.

"I don't know her, there's no reason for us to

Ever come in contact with each other."

That was perfect for us.

He's completely distancing himself from sierra.

Man: surveillance cameras that are in...

Narrator: detectives hold off arresting torres,

Hoping he might still lead them to sierra's whereabouts.

Maybe there was a chance,

Because now he knows he's on our radar,

He would do something to lead us to her.

Three days later, we made the decision,

We're gonna bring him in for an interview,

And we're gonna get a search warrant for his residence,

And we were seizing his vehicle.

Antolin garcia-torres just put himself

Dead smack in the middle of our crime scene

Of the abduction of sierra lamar

At the exact same

Time that we believed he was gonna be there.

He puts himself right there.

Narrator: quinonez continues to press torres for information.

I asked, "is there any reason why we --

We would find your dna?"

And he comes up with the story that he's very embarrassed

To tell us.

Julian: he enjoys masturbating in his vehicle.

That's probably how his dna would be out there somewhere.

Narrator: quinonez drills torres

For specific details about his movements that day.

Narrator: detectives head straight to the bank of america

That torres claims to have visited that day.

Julian: we know that we can obtain video from the bank.

And then we got our next big break.

Narrator: detectives are tracing the movements of

Antolin garcia-torres,

A suspect in the abduction of sierra lamar.

We were able to locate video surveillance from a bank of

America right down the street from

Antolin garcia-torres's residence.

Narrator: detectives line up the footage to

The time torres claims to have cashed a check.

Julian: and sure enough, he does go to the bank at 12:53 p.m.

That's about six hours from the time he left his residence.

Narrator: they check his movements from other angles.

He walks in, he's wearing a dark t-shirt,

Cargo pants, and work boots.

Narrator: then they try the widest camera

And spot something.

You can see the bottom portion of his pants

Are a little darker than the top portion.

We weren't sure if that was water, mud, or just the shadows.

Narrator: it appears that torres went near water during

The five hours directly after sierra went missing.

♪♪

That was really, really a critical piece of evidence,

Because it supported

What we believed that sierra could possibly be

By a body of water.

Narrator: detectives then make a shocking discovery

About torres's past.

Once we've got the dna match,

We obviously had to do a background on that individual.

A part of his background included that he had

Worked at the safeway grocery store in morgan hill.

Laurie: a couple of years before sierra was abducted,

There had been two attempted abductions

In a shopping center in morgan hill.

Those went unsolved.

No suspect was ever identified.

Narrator: precisely where torres was working at the time.

Ed: it was like a big lightbulb just going on in our heads.

I remember pulling up a composite on the --

Over the internet from the morgan hill

Dispatch website

And looking at the pictures, and it's like,

This is him, and it was such

A remarkable likeness to the composite drawing.

And because of that, we really spent a lot

Of time investigating those and talking with --

With the victims.

But one big key piece of evidence, in one of them,

He had dropped a taser.

He had attempted to use a stun g*n type of

Device to immobilize the victim,

And he dropped it at the scene.

When we opened up the battery compartment,

We were able to get a fingerprint off the battery.

But the fingerprint was not of such quality or

A big enough sample of the print to

Be able to be automated in the system.

Narrator: now, with torres identified as a suspect,

Forensics check the fingerprint again.

And we had one of our internal fingerprint experts

Look at that partial print,

And they were able to match it positively to

Antolin garcia-torres.

Narrator: this discovery suggests torres could be

A serial predator.

Based on the different cases from the safeway stores,

Based on the time between there and the sierra lamar case,

My thought was

He's progressed over time.

We couldn't allow him to do this again.

Narrator: as the evidence mounts,

Forensics come back from torres's car.

Julian: big hit from the dna was the rear doors.

Sierra's dna was on the handle,

And one of the items from the trunk was a large rope.

There was a single strand of hair that was on the rope

That was a match to sierra.

And then there was a set of gloves that contained

Sierra's dna.

Narrator: the dna evidence

Places sierra inside torres's car.

This was huge, because he distanced himself

From sierra -- there's no way that they could be

Around each other, in contact with each other,

Nothing, but yet we have sierra in the vehicle.

We made a decision

To arrest antolin

And take him down.

Woman: dna evidence links 21-year-old...

Narrator: 66 days after sierra's disappearance,

Officers arrest torres.

He is charged with kidnapping and first-degree m*rder.

Woman: ...under 24-hour surveillance.

And he said, "really?"

That was his response.

Danielle: I just remember watching it on the news,

And wondering who is this guy?

I have no idea who this is -- what made their paths cross?

I do have a plea to the perpetrator

To please, please give the information

If you have -- that you have

To lead us to sierra to help end this nightmare.

It didn't really give me any type of peace

Other than that this person is not gonna be

Out in the community doing it to another child.

We need to bring sierra home.

We thought we would find out where sierra was

And finally get the answers that we really want.

Narrator: but torres won't confess, so police can

Only speculate as to what happened to sierra.

It is likely torres studied her daily pattern

And intercepted her in his car

While she was on her way to the bus stop.

Julian: we were able to take this case in front of a jury

And try this man and convict him of m*rder with no body.

Narrator: torres is found guilty of first-degree m*rder

As well as kidnapping attempts on three other women.

He is sentenced to life without parole.

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind we have the right man,

No doubt at all.

[ Chord strikes ]

Narrator: torres never reveals where sierra's body lies.

I can be satisfied that the predator is in prison.

I cannot be satisfied that we've never

Been able to find sierra.

Julian: we don't know what he did with her.

He won't tell us. Only antolin knows.

I think he has no intention of saying anything.

I feel that he doesn't have a conscience.

Danielle: because it doesn't benefit him or help him

In any way, he's not gonna give us that.

Narrator: police and the community continue to

Search for sierra's final resting place,

But she is never found.

We'll always have that emptiness

Inside us, because we miss sierra.

It will be painful

As long as we're here on earth.

Steve: even though I want to see her friends

And they want to see us,

It's just hard because you see how their life is.

♪♪

You wonder how sierra would have turned out

And what she could have accomplished.

Channah: there was a moment when I looked at her photo,

And seeing a peaceful smile kind of gave me the answer

That I needed, which was that she was

No longer suffering, that she had moved on

And that... She was no longer alive.

Danielle: sierra would be twenty-four now.

She'd still be the friendly person that she's always been.

It's just very few people

I think that could make me laugh

The way that she did.

I think that's what I miss most about her.

♪♪