Searches will begin anew if new clues to her whereabouts are brought to light
Published in the April 1-14, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Volunteers in the quest to find Sierra LaMar gathered on the morning of Saturday March 14 at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center for the last official search effort. Many eyes clouded with tears. Many of the searchers spontaneously hugged each other in a warm greeting.
Among the volunteers was Trudy Parks who wore a T-shirt with a picture of a smiling Sierra on the front and “Everyone’s Daughter” printed over it. The Morgan Hill resident said it was an emotionally difficult moment for her when she walked into the community center and saw many of the people she had formed tight-knit relationships with during the three years searchers have been trying to find Sierra. The vivacious Sobrato High School cheerleader went missing March 16, 2012.
“We came together as strangers, we’ve been together for three years now,” Parks said. “We’ve become an extended family. Sierra is our daughter. We’re not going to say goodbye to each other — ever.”
The drive to find Sierra is strong in Parks because she lost her son Dustin, a man of 33 years who committed suicide in 2003. For a 24-hour period, the family didn’t know where he was, so she could sympathize with the LaMars in their uncertainty of where Sierra might be.
“That was my initial motivation,” she said on joining the search. “I’ve been there and I know what it feels like, so I’m going to do whatever I can to help find this girl who is missing.”
A similar story can be told by Shelli LaMadrid, whose partner Kathy LaMadrid went missing in Fort Bragg more than a decade ago. LaMadrid joined the El Dorado County Search and Rescue team as a volunteer to learn the process of finding a missing person in the effort to locate Kathy. It also prompted her to join the Sierra LaMar search efforts, and she plans to continue the search even with the closure of the search center.
“I have ideas about different areas that she might possibly be,” she said. “We’re not giving up.”
San Rafael resident Kelby Jones has been part of the Sierra search since the beginning, and he has seen hundreds of people give of their time in more than 1,000 searches to explore creeks, fields and roads in the region to bring closure to the story of Sierra’s disappearance.
“I think it means different things to different people,” Jones said. “I think what has really impacted people over three years now is a sense of caring not only for Sierra and her family but also for each other. Certainly, you can see a community has formed.”
Jones hopes that details in the trial of 23-year-old Antolin Garcia-Torres, who is now in the Santa Clara County Jail charged with abducting and murdering Sierra, might provide clues to her recovery. If that happens, the search organizers will send out a communication to volunteers and resume the search.
“There’s a real frustration in trying to figure out what is it that we should know but we don’t,” Jones said. “We’ve had very little information to go on, so in that respect it’s a needle in a haystack.”
Search organizers poured over the Grand Jury transcripts released last July for any information that might lead them in the search. Jones believes Garcia-Torres’s trial will begin next year, and he suspects the defense team is delaying court proceedings and keeping information about Sierra’s location as a bargaining leverage in the case.
In the El Toro Room of the Community Center, various reporters from TV and print news media set up cameras to record the press conference to announce the search center’s closure. Steve LaMar thanked various organizations, businesses and individuals who were involved in helping organize the search center soon after Sierra’s disappearance.
“Today we’re going to announce that we’re going to suspend our formal searches that we’ve had scheduled the last three years,” Steve said. “At this point we’ve exhausted our inventory of viable search areas and that’s why we’re suspending (the search) for now. I want to make it clear we’re not ending the searches. We’re going into a different mode now.”
He praised the hundreds of people who have turned up over the years to help with the search. Many of the searchers stood at the front of the room in a show of solidarity with the LaMars including Sierra’s mom Marlene and older sister Danielle.
“The people who have really been awe-inspiring to us and blew us away are the people who were complete strangers to us before this happened,” he said. “And they’re up here with me, most of them, right now. And it’s them who we’re sincerely grateful to for coming out and dedicating their time and energy for finding Sierra.” He choked up for a moment. “For them we’re truly grateful,” he continued.
The Sierra LaMar Search Center is the longest-run search center for an individual that has ever operated in the United States, Marlene said. This fact demonstrates the dedication of people trying to find her daughter, for which she is truly grateful. The LaMars will help in searches for other missing children, she said.
“We will never as a family and as a group give up the mission to find Sierra LaMar,” Marlene said.
Marc Klaas’s 12-year-old daughter Polly Klaas was kidnapped at knife point from her mother’s Petaluma home during a slumber party in 1993. Her remains were found 65 days later and Richard Allen Davis was charged sentenced to death. Klaas established the KlaasKids Foundation to help other families in similar cases including the LaMars.
“The LaMars have survived the trials and tribulations of the last three years in remarkably good shape and I think a lot of that is due to the fact that they have this amazing cadre of individuals who have maintained their support and their loyalty,” he said.
Klaas was surprised Sierra’s remains were never found despite the many searchers who were involved in the effort to find her.
“I had full confidence that we’d be able to find her, I really did. I thought that with all the people showing up to support them, all the people volunteering to search, I thought it would be a couple of weeks before we located her,” he said. “And I’m really kind of stunned that we haven’t.”
Later in the morning, about 30 searchers gathered at the Coyote Creek Parkway in south San Jose to search the dry creek bed. Among them was David Arocha. It was his 102nd search for Sierra, and it was hard for him to think this might be the last search.
“I knew this day would come, eventually it would, but I don’t think it was in vain,” he said. “People did their best. Some people came out every week, every Saturday. After a while, some people did lose their focus. But we looked everywhere that we could look.”
Nichole Larson poked through tall pampas grass on the creek looking for bone fragments or any other evidence of Sierra. She had moved to Morgan Hill two months before Sierra went missing, and the anguish of the LaMar family prompted her to help in the search for the past three years. The last search was a bittersweet one for her and others, she said.
“It’s the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one,” she said. “We’ll search as needed, but we’ll also gather together and hang out. Sierra has touched us all.”
