2 weeks ago, she left a doctor's appointment with her baby. They haven't been found since
It's been more than two weeks since Whisper Owen and her daughter, Sandra McCarty, were last seen, according to the Fresno County Sheriff's Office.
Authorities say they have no clues in the Sacramento pair's disappearance, and loved ones have been left wondering and searching.
'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,' said Owen's mother, Vickie Torres, tearfully. 'And that beautiful little baby. God, I hope, whatever happened, she's with her mama.'
In a post to social media, the Sheriff's Office said that no information had been found to explain the disappearance. The Fresno Police Department's Missing Persons Unit is leading the investigation and, as of Wednesday evening, had no new developments to report.
'There is nothing in the current missing persons investigations which leads us to believe any foul play is involved with Whisper and her child not being located yet,' the department said in a statement to The Times.
Torres confirmed that Owen and her daughter left Sacramento around 4 a.m. on July 15 and headed south toward Fresno to go to a doctor's appointment for the baby. Owen stopped at Torres' house in Fresno to change Sandra's diaper and then checked in for the appointment at 8:30 a.m., Torres said.
Owen then visited her brother's Fresno home until around 2:45 p.m., then stopped to see Torres at her home again before leaving the city around 5 p.m., Torres said. Owen drove a silver 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer, and a license plate reader recognized her car in Atwater, about 65 miles from Fresno, at 8 that night, according to officials.
Torres said that Owen probably stopped in Atwater to get baby formula for Sandra or to use the restroom. Security footage from a smoke shop in Atwater captured Owen parking and then changing her baby's diaper around 7:30 p.m., police said.
That was the last sign of Owen, her daughter or her vehicle.
Torres said Owen often spends days at a time at her house in Fresno, so her partner wasn't concerned when she didn't return home that night. Three days later, Owen's partner called Torres, asking where her daughter was.
'I'm like, 'What do you mean? She's not here,'' Torres told The Times. 'So then everything started to get scary at that point.'
Ever since, Torres said, her family has been tirelessly searching the roads from Fresno to Sacramento, reaching out to businesses whose employees may have seen Owen, putting up fliers and spreading the word on social media.
She also said that Owen experienced preeclampsia during her most recent pregnancy, causing her to be hospitalized several times with high blood pressure that continued even after she had given birth. Torres worried that Owen might have had a medical emergency while driving. With no information, it's easy to create troubling scenarios, she said.
Torres said the situation has been distressing for the entire family.
Owen and her partner are parents to Sandra, as well as a 3-year-old and a 9-year-old. She also has a 16-year-old child from a previous relationship.
'All of these kids are losing their minds,' Torres said. 'I mean, she didn't just run off or anything like that. ... She's got other children, I mean, no.'
Owen's partner, whom Torres declined to name and who didn't immediately respond to The Times' request for comment, 'has been constantly searching, and he's exhausting every resource to him,' she said.
Torres said she has been frustrated with the lack of information found so far. She has reached out to other agencies, including the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Sacramento Police Department, asking for assistance in the investigation.
'They've all blown me off,' Torres said.
Sacramento police said in a statement to The Times, however, that they had assisted Fresno in the investigation. A Department of Justice spokesperson said the agency had posted Owen and her daughter on its public California Missing Persons website. The FBI didn't respond to The Times' request for comment.
Torres described her daughter as an outspoken, trusting person who would drop anything to help a stranger in need.
'A lot of people love her,' Torres said. 'I've never met anybody that didn't like my daughter.'
Fresno police said that teams were checking family shelters in Sacramento County and surrounding areas for Owen and her daughter.
The Fresno Sheriff's Office advised the public to dial 911 if they saw Owen and her daughter or the vehicle.
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2 weeks ago, she left a doctor's appointment with her baby. They haven't been found since
The search continues for a California woman and her 8-month-old daughter who vanished while on their way home after a doctor's appointment, authorities and family said. It's been more than two weeks since Whisper Owen and her daughter, Sandra McCarty, were last seen, according to the Fresno County Sheriff's Office. Authorities say they have no clues in the Sacramento pair's disappearance, and loved ones have been left wondering and searching. '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,' said Owen's mother, Vickie Torres, tearfully. 'And that beautiful little baby. God, I hope, whatever happened, she's with her mama.' In a post to social media, the Sheriff's Office said that no information had been found to explain the disappearance. The Fresno Police Department's Missing Persons Unit is leading the investigation and, as of Wednesday evening, had no new developments to report. 'There is nothing in the current missing persons investigations which leads us to believe any foul play is involved with Whisper and her child not being located yet,' the department said in a statement to The Times. Torres confirmed that Owen and her daughter left Sacramento around 4 a.m. on July 15 and headed south toward Fresno to go to a doctor's appointment for the baby. Owen stopped at Torres' house in Fresno to change Sandra's diaper and then checked in for the appointment at 8:30 a.m., Torres said. Owen then visited her brother's Fresno home until around 2:45 p.m., then stopped to see Torres at her home again before leaving the city around 5 p.m., Torres said. Owen drove a silver 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer, and a license plate reader recognized her car in Atwater, about 65 miles from Fresno, at 8 that night, according to officials. Torres said that Owen probably stopped in Atwater to get baby formula for Sandra or to use the restroom. Security footage from a smoke shop in Atwater captured Owen parking and then changing her baby's diaper around 7:30 p.m., police said. That was the last sign of Owen, her daughter or her vehicle. Torres said Owen often spends days at a time at her house in Fresno, so her partner wasn't concerned when she didn't return home that night. Three days later, Owen's partner called Torres, asking where her daughter was. 'I'm like, 'What do you mean? She's not here,'' Torres told The Times. 'So then everything started to get scary at that point.' Ever since, Torres said, her family has been tirelessly searching the roads from Fresno to Sacramento, reaching out to businesses whose employees may have seen Owen, putting up fliers and spreading the word on social media. She also said that Owen experienced preeclampsia during her most recent pregnancy, causing her to be hospitalized several times with high blood pressure that continued even after she had given birth. Torres worried that Owen might have had a medical emergency while driving. With no information, it's easy to create troubling scenarios, she said. Torres said the situation has been distressing for the entire family. Owen and her partner are parents to Sandra, as well as a 3-year-old and a 9-year-old. She also has a 16-year-old child from a previous relationship. 'All of these kids are losing their minds,' Torres said. 'I mean, she didn't just run off or anything like that. ... She's got other children, I mean, no.' Owen's partner, whom Torres declined to name and who didn't immediately respond to The Times' request for comment, 'has been constantly searching, and he's exhausting every resource to him,' she said. Torres said she has been frustrated with the lack of information found so far. She has reached out to other agencies, including the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Sacramento Police Department, asking for assistance in the investigation. 'They've all blown me off,' Torres said. Sacramento police said in a statement to The Times, however, that they had assisted Fresno in the investigation. A Department of Justice spokesperson said the agency had posted Owen and her daughter on its public California Missing Persons website. The FBI didn't respond to The Times' request for comment. Torres described her daughter as an outspoken, trusting person who would drop anything to help a stranger in need. 'A lot of people love her,' Torres said. 'I've never met anybody that didn't like my daughter.' Fresno police said that teams were checking family shelters in Sacramento County and surrounding areas for Owen and her daughter. The Fresno Sheriff's Office advised the public to dial 911 if they saw Owen and her daughter or the vehicle.
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Angelo Buono was the elder of the killers. He was wiry and foul-mouthed, a swaggering 44-year-old high school dropout who ran a solo auto-upholstery business out of his Glendale garage. A sometime pimp, he fancied himself a ladies' man. He flew an Italian flag at his yellow house. His cousin, Kenneth Bianchi, was the more outwardly polished of their cruel partnership. Detectives would call him 'Slick Ken.' He was 27, an aspiring cop with a Hollywood apartment and a glib patter that reminded people of a used-car salesman. He had a closetful of bogus diplomas and liked to pose as a sex therapist. To lure girls and young women back to Buono's house, the cousins posed as vice officers and flashed fake badges. They raped, tortured and killed their victims between October 1977 and February 1978, and left them to be found in ways that seemed designed to taunt police and maximize public terror. Their targets included runaways and aspiring actresses. Some were waiting at bus stops. 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'If a woman runs from you, we said, don't chase her,' Gates would write. 'Understand that she may be panicking, thinking that you're him.' Some detectives thought the bodies had been carried to the dump sites by multiple people, since the scenes lacked drag marks. Serial killers almost always worked alone, but there might be 'one homicidal maniac or several,' The Times reported. An LAPD commander said, 'There may be as many as 4 or 5 sets of stranglers.' With panic pervasive and pressure to close the case mounting, the LAPD arrested a Beverly Hills handyman in connection with the murders — a jailhouse snitch had implicated him — but were forced to release him three days later, accompanied by a humiliating public apology from Gates. The L.A. killings inexplicably stopped in spring 1978; nearly a year passed without more bodies. Detectives rotated back to their old assignments. Reflecting on his reaction, Salerno said: 'Why did it stop, if there were two? Were both of them in custody? Did one kill the other? Who knows?' In mid-January 1979, the phone rang at the Sheriff's Department with a call from police in Bellingham, Wash., where 27-year-old Kenneth Bianchi was in custody for the rape and strangling of two local college students. He had been working as a rent-a-cop. The address on his driver's license was 1950 Tamarind Ave. in Hollywood. Alert L.A. detectives remembered that a Strangler victim, 18-year-old escort Kimberly Martin, had been abducted from that location. Another of Bianchi's former addresses, in Glendale, was an apartment complex where a second victim, a 20-year-old art student named Kristina Weckler, had lived. A third victim had lived across the street. Bianchi's name, it turned out, had surfaced multiple times during the investigation. At one point, he had even agreed to take a polygraph test. But no one had followed up. 'Our computer software could not collate all the information fed into it, and Bianchi's name was spelled differently each time,' Gates would write, lamenting that he had lacked the time and authority to supervise the case with more granular intensity. 'It continues to haunt me today that I didn't personally go over every detail.' One of Bianchi's former neighbors remembered him as 'a friendly, well-mannered, nice young man.' When reporters learned his cousin Buono was his suspected accomplice, they drove to Glendale but found him a surly subject. 'You guys blowed up the story too goddam much,' Buono said. 'Goodbye and get off my property.' A few months later, still free but under tight surveillance, he was ready to share a few bitter thoughts. 'The only thing I have to say is I haven't did nothing,' Buono told reporters. 'They won't find nothing 'cause I ain't did nothing.' He complained that the attention had dried up referrals to his auto upholstery business. 'The phone don't ring any more. Nobody comes in. As a businessman, I'm dead.' As for his younger cousin? He didn't even know him that well, he insisted. He had let him stay with him briefly as a favor to his aunt, and the association had meant nothing but grief. 'We didn't have nothing in common,' he said. 'Now I wouldn't do no more favors for anybody, even the Pope.' Up in Washington state, Bianchi had confessed to some of the L.A. murders and implicated his cousin as his partner. There was a bizarre catch, however. Bianchi did so under hypnosis, and convinced more than one psychiatrist that he suffered from multiple personality disorder. To take Bianchi's schtick seriously was to believe an alter ego named 'Steve Walker' had done the crimes, the basis for an insanity defense. 'We're looking at this going, 'Good God, hopefully nobody's believing this crap,'' Peter Finnigan, one of the sheriff's detectives on the case, told The Times recently. Finnigan said he and his partners soon discovered that Steve Walker was the name of a real psychologist whose credentials Bianchi had stolen to pass himself off as one. Bianchi had duped the psychologist into sending him his school transcripts by placing an ad in the L.A. Times pretending to seek an associate for a fake therapy practice. Detectives went hunting for the Help Wanted ad, hunkered over the microfiche machine at the newspaper's downtown office. 'We spent almost two weeks in your damn basement,' Finnigan told The Times. They found the ad and exposed Bianchi's ruse. 'Basically his multiple personality defense is destroyed,' Finnigan said. 'Because your primary multiple personality isn't yours, it's a real person.' In no time, Bianchi pleaded guilty to the two Washington murders and five of the L.A. murders. He agreed to testify against his cousin. (In a case with no shortage of weirdness, a woman who said she loved Bianchi, Veronica Compton, tried to strangle a cocktail waitress to make it appear the real Strangler was still loose; she went to prison for it.) At various times, more than a dozen L.A. murders were attributed to the Stranglers, some mistakenly. Los Angeles prosecutors prepared to try Buono for ten of them. But their star witness was increasingly capricious. Sometimes, Bianchi insisted he and Buono had taken turns strangling victims; other times, he claimed not to have been present at all, or to have watched Buono do it. It amounted to the 'self-immolation of his own credibility,' said Assistant Dist. Atty. Roger Kelly. He told the press it would be unethical to rely on a witness he considered a liar, bluntly conceding: 'The case is in trouble.' And so it was no surprise when he announced in July 1981 that his office, under Dist. Atty. John Van De Kamp, was dropping the murder charges against Buono. The office would pursue pimping charges, but even if convicted, at most Buono would get a few years. Cops were furious. 'Kelly was one of these guys who wanted eyewitnesses,' Finnigan recalled — an area in which the case was flimsy. 'He didn't like circumstantial evidence. He felt there were too many loose ends.' Gates, in his memoir, derided Kelly as a weak-kneed prosecutor who feared damage to his reputation if he lost on such a large stage, an attorney who preferred 'pat cases, sure things, with all the T's crossed and the I's dotted,' he wrote. 'Sometimes a prosecutor has to take a chance.' It was Superior Court Judge Ronald George who saved the case. He spent more than an hour reading aloud a scathing 36-page ruling, ordering the district attorney's office to 'vigorously and effectively resume' the prosecution, or else he'd give it to the attorney general's office. While Bianchi's account was a 'morass of contradictions,' there was nevertheless a great deal of evidence to corroborate his claims, which he said prosecutors had unaccountably 'glossed over.' For example, there was the account of Catherine Lorre, daughter of the late actor Peter Lorre, who said the cousins had posed as vice cops while trying to abduct her in Hollywood in 1977. And there were polyester fibers on two of the victims matching material found in Buono's shop. Prosecutors were stunned by George's ruling, and the defense flabbergasted. 'I've been practicing law for 15 years and I've never seen anything like this happen before,' said Gerald Chaleff, one of Buono's attorneys. It was a decision the judge was proud of, later telling a reporter: 'Ten bodies don't just get swept under the carpet!' In a recent interview, the retired judge — who went on to serve as chief justice of the California Supreme Court for 14 years — told The Times: 'Normally, like most judges, I would not second-guess a prosecutor's evaluation of his or her own case.' But 'I felt I had not only a right, but a duty' to do so. The attorney general's office prosecuted Buono, which became the longest murder trial in American history — a record that still holds. From jury selection in November 1981 to nine guilty verdicts in November 1983, it ran for 729 days, with 392 witnesses and 1,807 exhibits. Bianchi testified for months, and although his testimony was riddled with contradictions, he supplied details only one of the killers would have known — like the use of cleaning fluid to inject one of the victims. Sentenced to life, Buono died in prison in 2002, at age 67. For prosecutors who had tried to scuttle a winnable case against a serial killer, the notoriety was unkind. Kelly, a downtown veteran, was transferred against his will to the Compton branch. His former boss, Van De Kamp, carried a political albatross. 'It was an error,' he acknowledged, admitting he had wrongly assessed the strength of the evidence. But Democrat and Republican rivals cudgeled him with it during his failed run for governor in 1990. Bianchi, now 74, remains locked up and was recently denied parole. Finnigan, the retired detective, attended the virtual hearing and perceived no difference in the 'pathological lying sociopath' he began studying in 1979. 'He's exactly the same,' Finnigan said. 'His mannerisms and his speech patterns, exactly. He's double slick.'
