Volunteers now meet Saturdays at Central High School on Monterey Road
By Marty Cheek
On an overcast Saturday morning, about 30 people gathered inside a lobby at Morgan Hill’s Central High School. They held hands in a group circle as a woman prayed for God’s blessing in their continuing search for a teenage girl who disappeared one foggy March morning last year. Among them was Roger Nelson, a Gilroy resident who has dedicated nearly all of his Saturday mornings to help Steve and Marlene LaMar find closure in their search for their daughter Sierra LaMar.
Nelson was driving back from San Jose on March 26, 2012 when the thought hit him he must join the search for the missing teenager. “I said, ‘Enough, enough, I’m tired of being on the sidelines. I want to help out and participate like everyone else here. Let’s bring her home.’”
Volunteers meet at Central High School every Saturday and say a prayer before heading out to search for Sierra LaMar, who has been missing since March 2012.
He immediately drove to the newly-opened Sierra LaMar search headquarters at Burnett Elementary School and offered his assistance. (The headquarters was moved to Central High School a few blocks north of downtown Morgan Hill in June.) Nelson has given hundreds of his hours organizing teams of search volunteers before they go into the field. The hope of one day finding Sierra’s remains keeps him and other volunteers searching.
“There are thousands of stories in our nation, and probably worldwide, of people looking for missing children, but Sierra is unique,” Nelson said. “Marc Klaas (father of murdered child Polly Klaas) has said this is maybe the longest continuous search for one individual in the history of the U.S. People just keep coming. They’re very devoted. There’s a great spirit of cooperation and coordination, and I’m very proud to be a part of it.”
Marlene LaMar feels inspired by the volunteers searching for her daughter. “They’ve become attached to the case and have grown to become pretty much like an extension of our family,” she said. “And families stick together. They never give up. They’re there for each other in difficult times as well as the good times. And I feel being an extension of our family that they feel this and that’s what drives their passion as far as continuing the fight to not give up and continue searching for her.”
Steve LaMar echoes the sentiment. “These searchers have been coming out for almost a year and a half now,” he said. “Most of them have been coming out since day one. You get to really know these people. They’ve become like family.”
Throughout Morgan Hill, posters featuring a photo of the smiling Sobrato High School cheerleader are taped to shop windows and tacked to telephone poles. They ask for any information in finding the girl who was 15 years old when she went missing at or near her school bus stop at the intersection of Dougherty and Palm avenues in Coyote Valley north of Morgan Hill. The unanswered questions behind her disappearance have been painful for the LaMar family. Those questions have also brought together volunteers from all over the Bay Area who hunger to help. Among them is Sheila Gokey of Los Gatos.
“I saw the interview on television right at the very beginning when they first opened the search center, and I felt compelled to join the search,” Gokey said. “If it was my daughter, I would never stop looking. And I would never want anyone else to stop looking.”
In the search, Gokey has combed the rural terrain of Santa Clara County parks, hiked the steep hills of Mt. Umunhum, and wadded along muddy reservoirs and creeks.
She and other volunteers keep up their efforts in cold, wet winter days as well as hot, dry summer days when the thermometer hits as high as 105 degrees. Gokey also often takes Sierra LaMar search fliers to truck stops.
“The type of individual that’s drawn to this search — they’re really just good people,” she said. “If you’ve fallen down, you know there’s someone there to help you up.”
The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office arrested Morgan Hill resident Antolin Garcia Torres in May last year on murder charges relating to the case, even though Sierra LaMar’s body has not been found.
Based on information from the Sheriff’s Office, the volunteers have gone back to look at areas they have previously searched, said San Rafael resident Kelby Jones who leads search teams.
“The reason we’re returning to previous locations is that we’re searching differently and looking for slightly different things,” he said. “Instead of searching for remains in the open, which was the initial search effort, we’re looking for shallow grave areas that would be certainly more secluded and disguised.
“With that in mind, we’re not intending to do everything over again forever, but we’re going back to those places where we think we have good information to go back to again.”
Jones notes that everyone who volunteers has their own individual reasons for participating in the search. “They are drawn by the plight of Sierra and her family,” he said. “I believe that the need to do something, to right that wrong, is a basic motivator for most of these people.”
