San Bernardino woman’s disappearance leads to many tips, few clues

Tips called in to San Bernardino police about a missing woman who vanished near Cal State San Bernardino, the site of several recent attacks against women, have stretched out to remote homes and dusty ranches across the county, police said Thursday.

“We’re searching a number of locations, all the remote areas,” said Lt. Rich Lawhead. “We don’t have any solid [ones]. We’re following up on every little lead that comes in.

“We just don’t have anything right now,” Lawhead added.

Sahray Astina Barber, 22, has not been seen since 6 a.m. Monday when she left her apartment across the street from the campus in the 1500 block of West Northpark Boulevard to go to work at an art institute.

Police said her laptop and phone were found in bushes not far from a parking lot near her home. A bloodhound tracked her scent from the area around the bushes to the parking lot, where the trail went cold, Lawhead said.

There weren’t any signs of a struggle, and the phone and laptop were intact -- as if they’d been set down, he said.

The case has taken on a higher profile than typical missing-persons cases because twice in the last two weeks women have been attacked at the university.

On Sunday, a man approached a woman from behind, put his hand over her mouth and said, “Come on, let’s go for a ride in my car,” before she fought him off.

Last week, a woman fought off an attempted sexual assault in the school library.

No arrest has been made in either case, but police have released a sketch of the suspect.

Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said in a video posted online Tuesday night that detectives were looking into any potential links to the incidents but so far hadn’t found any.

“Rest assured, we immediately looked to see if there was any potential connection in our investigation,” Burguan said. “However, at this point, we are not able to connect the on-campus incident” to Barber’s disappearance.

Investigators have searched Barber’s apartment for forensic evidence, Lawhead said. Authorities don’t a motive for her disappearance or any evidence she was taken against her will, he said.

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