A body has been found in the frantic search for a Texas teen who mysteriously vanished from her home on Christmas Eve.
Camila Mendoza Olmos, 19, was last seen on a neighbor’s surveillance camera leaving her San Antonio neighborhood just before 7am Wednesday, prompting a week-long search as authorities warned she could be in ‘imminent danger.’
On Tuesday, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said that a body had been found in a field ‘very close to Camila’s home,’ according to WFAA News.
The body was discovered during a renewed search by sheriff’s deputies and FBI agents in a field they decided to re-comb because of the dense brush.
However, Sheriff Javier Salazar said the medical examiner has yet to confirm the identity of the remains, as well as the cause and manner of death, according to the outlet.
‘But we hope to expedite that process to get the community answers,’ Salazar said.
He added that he hopes the medical examiner will release answers regarding the identity within the next day or two.
‘We developed some information that there may have been some suicidal ideations on Camila’s part,’ the sheriff said.
A body has been found in the frantic search for Texas teen, Camila Mendoza Olmos, 19, who mysteriously vanished from her home on Christmas Eve
‘Undiagnosed, as far as we can tell,’ he added. ‘It sounds like this was a young person going through a very tough time in her life, going through some emotional issues.’
The discovery comes one week after the college student vanished from her mother’s driveway on Christmas Eve morning, where she had been living while attending nearby Northwest Vista College with hopes of becoming an orthodontist.
Olmos’ childhood friend Camila Estrella said their last conversation was a day before her disappearance, when they planned to go dress shopping for her boyfriend’s family event.
Estrella told the New York Post that Olmos’ parting words were, ‘Bye Cami, I love you.’
Her sudden disappearance immediately prompted urgent pleas from her family, with authorities recognizing the area she vanished from as a human-trafficking corridor.
On the morning of her disappearance, KENS obtained surveillance footage showing Olmos near her car with the lights on, wearing only a hoodie and pajama shorts.
Investigators said the footage shows Olmos searching inside the car for an unidentified item before the video abruptly ends.
They said it is unclear what she was searching for. Police believe she took only her car keys and possibly her driver’s license when she left home.
Authorities noted that her car was still parked at the residence, suggesting she left on foot. From that point, she was never seen again.
Olmos’s family said she normally goes for morning walks but always takes her phone, insisting it was out of character for her to leave without telling them where she was going.
Her mother, Rosario Olmos, told KENS 5 that they had been sleeping together that morning. She said Camila got up, and about an hour and a half later, she did too – but there were no signs of Camila except for her car.
‘I called her cell phone, but the cell phone was there on the bed and it was turned off,’ her mother told the outlet.
‘I put it to charge and went out to look for her,’ she added. ‘I thought I would find her like other times – walking – and we would come home together.’
On Sunday, Sheriff Salazar told ABC News that authorities were ‘not ruling out that this case may take us outside the borders of the continental United States.’
He made it a personal mission to ensure she had not been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, noting it was a ‘concern’ that had crossed his mind at the beginning of the search, despite Olmos being a US citizen.
Beyond that, investigators said all possibilities remained on the table, including the chance she was kidnapped or fell victim to human trafficking.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security immediately assisted with the desperate search, including monitoring border crossings and international travel.
