Mystery after mom and daughter vanish during a routine trip home: ‘I'm desperate to find my daughter'
Whisper Owen, 36, and her 8-month-old daughter, Sandra McCarty, were last seen nearly two weeks ago on July 15, according to police.
'I'm desperate to find my daughter and her baby,' Owen's mother, Vickie Torres, told CNN.
Owen, from Elk Grove in Sacramento County, was in Fresno for a routine checkup for her daughter, Torres said. She had left in the evening and hoped to get home before dark, her mother said, but she never returned.
'It's like she vanished into thin air,' Torres said.
Owen's brother, Richard, fears his sister may have had a medical emergency as her family told CNN she suffers from high blood pressure.
'My fear is that maybe there was a medical emergency behind the wheel, and maybe she had veered off the road,' Richard told the outlet. 'I can't help but to feel like something horrible has happened.'
Torres said, 'Everything is good in her life right now. There's no reason for her to have taken off.'
Police told CNN there is nothing to suggest foul play is involved in Owen's disappearance.
Owen has three other children: a 17-year-old, an 8-year-old, and a 3-year-old. Richard says the children are 'all devastated wanting to know if and when they will see their mother again.'
Timeline of Owen's disappearance
Owen had an 8:30 a.m. doctor's appointment for her daughter on Tuesday, July 15. Before the checkup, she visited her mother's house, where she changed and fed her daughter.
After the appointment, she visited her brother's house. Richard said he last saw his sister at around 2:45 p.m. local time.
Owen then went back to her mother's house to eat lunch and play with the baby, according to her mother.
The Fresno County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post Owen and her daughter had left the city at around 5 p.m.
A traffic camera last captured her 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer just after 8 p.m. in Atwater, about an hour-and-a-half drive southeast of Elk Grove and around an hour northwest of Fresno, police say.
The Fresno Police Department told CNN they believe Owen and her daughter are not in the Fresno area.
Owen's partner didn't realize she was missing until Saturday, Richard said. Her partner thought Owen had stayed to help her mother clean up a house she had recently purchased, according to Richard.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Two killed and six wounded in mass shooting at LA music festival afterparty
Two people were killed and six others were wounded in a mass shooting at a music festival afterparty in downtown Los Angeles early on Monday, officials said. Police first responded around 11pm on Sunday evening to shut down a 'big party' after officers saw a person possibly armed with a gun go inside a building in the city's warehouse district, Los Angeles police department spokesperson Norma Eisenman told the Associated Press. That person was arrested at the scene, she said. The event was billed on social media as an unofficial afterparty for Hard Summer, a weekend festival for house and techno music that took place in Hollywood Park by SoFi stadium, which is located in Inglewood in south LA, the Los Angeles Times reported. LAPD received reports of shots fired at the afterparty around 1am on Sunday, after officers had cleared the area. When police returned, they found one person had died and learned multiple people had been hit by bullets, Eisenman said. One man died at the scene and a woman died at a hospital, the spokesperson said. Six people were taken to hospitals in unknown condition, she said. A man told KABC-TV that his 29-year-old son was one of the two people killed. There was no information about a suspect or a motive. Investigators remained at the scene for hours. Karen Bass, the mayor of LA, condemned the shooting in a social media post, saying: 'This senseless violence and loss of life is devastating and those who are responsible must be held accountable. There will be no tolerance for violence in this city. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.' Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Bass said the investigation was ongoing and gang interventionists were 'providing support for families and continuing the everyday work of keeping our neighborhoods safe'. Interventionists function as social workers and mediators who work within communities to resolve conflict and prevent violence. One attendee at the party, who declined to give their name, told the LA Times that it sounded as if '100 shots' had been fired, and said people scrambled onto the street in a stampede. The LA violence happened two days after four people were killed in a shooting at a bar in Montana, which was the ninth mass shooting of the year so far, according to nine, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-partisan group. A gunman also killed four people in Manhattan in an incident that shook New York city last month, and multiple shootings broke out across the country on the Fourth of July holiday.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
US law firm Duane Morris must face lawsuit over alleged partner pay scheme
Aug 4 (Reuters) - U.S. law firm Duane Morris must face a proposed class action accusing it of misclassifying some of its employees as partners in a bid to force them to pay part of the firm's taxes and expenses while denying them a share of its profits. U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo in San Diego on Friday denied Duane Morris', opens new tab bid to dismiss most of the claims in the lawsuit brought by Meagan Garland, a former partner in the firm's employment law practice. Bencivengo said she would give Garland the chance to amend her lawsuit to reassert two of the three claims she dismissed. "We are very pleased with the judge's thoughtful ruling and look forward to getting into the merits of the case," said Bibianne Fell, whose law firm Fell Law PC is representing Garland. A spokesperson for Duane Morris declined to comment. Many U.S. law firms internally designate some partners as non-equity or "income" partners. Such partners typically earn far less than full equity partners, whose compensation is tied directly to firm profits. Garland sued Duane Morris in August 2024, accusing the firm of systematically and unlawfully misclassifying its non-equity partners as "partners" even though they can be hired and fired at-will, and do not have an ownership stake in the firm. After promoting lower-ranked lawyers to its non-equity partner tier, Duane Morris stops paying the employer's share of their federal and state payroll taxes, as well as their benefits such as health care, vision, dental and disability insurance, Garland alleged. Garland, who is Black, also accused Philadelphia-founded Duane Morris of paying women and minorities less than their white male counterparts. Duane Morris said in a court filing, opens new tab that Garland's claims lacked any validity, and that she was a "genuine partner whom the firm has always compensated and otherwise treated fairly and well within the bounds of the law." The case is Garland v. Duane Morris LLP, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, No. 3:24-cv-01783. For Meagan Garland: Bibianne Fell, Benjamin Schenk and Marlee Horwitz of Fell Law For Duane Morris: Gregory Knopp and Elise Bloom of Proskauer Rose
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
British man smuggled out of US migrant detention centre by Left-wing activists
A British man accused of being in the US illegally broke out of a migrant detention centre with the help of Left-wing activists. Ahmed Mohamed escaped from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody on Tuesday while being transferred to an immigrant detention centre in California. Mohamed, who has been charged with narcotics and weapons offences, was shackled and being frogmarched to an ICE facility in downtown Los Angeles when a masked man, understood to be a pro-immigration protester, helped him to escape while guards were distracted, Homeland Security sources told The New York Post. The suspect was then loaded into a waiting van and made his getaway with the help of other protesters, according to ICE. After a three-day manhunt, Mohamed was tracked down and 'swiftly arrested' on Friday by ICE agents in San Diego, who shared a social media post of the suspect. 'You can run from the law but you cannot hide,' the post read. 'After escaping ICE custody with the help of pro-illegal alien activists, Ahmed Mohamed of the UK was swiftly apprehended and placed back into ICE custody. 'On top of his charges and convictions for narcotics and weapons possession, he will now be charged with escaping from confinement.' Mohamed 'reunited with handcuffs' The agency signed off by thanking San Diego ICE staff for 'reuniting Ahmed with his handcuffs'. The detention centre was targeted by anti-ICE protesters in June, when rioters threw rocks at police and blocked off major roads in an attempt to push back against Donald Trump's deportation programme. Mr Trump responded by deploying 2,000 members of the National Guard and 700 marines to quell the protests, with Karen Bass, the LA mayor, accusing the president of acting like a bully. The administration's show of force sparked fury from Gavin Newsom, the state's Democratic governor, who warned that 'Democracy is under assault before our eyes'. Mohamed is the latest British citizen to be detained by ICE agents, after Orlando Duncan Da Silva Bain, 19, was arrested in New York in May. On entering the US, Da Silva Bain allegedly failed to declare his UK criminal record, which included child sex offences, according to ICE.
