Girl’s Body Found in Desert; May Be Kidnap Victim, 8

The body of a girl was found Monday in a rural high desert area of San Bernardino County, 23 miles northwest of where an 8-year-old girl from Twentynine Palms was kidnaped eight days ago, sheriff’s deputies said.

San Bernardino County sheriff’s investigators said the body and clothing “appear to be consistent” with the description of Sylvia Elaine Mangos, who was last seen at a swap meet at Sky Drive-In in Yucca Valley.

Deputy Jerry Bucklin said that a resident found the body of the girl in the open desert in the Johnson Valley area.

“(Positive) identification has not been made at this point,” he said, adding that an autopsy was scheduled on the remains.

The disappearance of Sylvia, a third-grade honor student at Twentynine Palms Elementary School, prompted a massive search that involved hundreds of investigators, family members, friends, volunteers, tracking dogs and the distribution of flyers and the offer of a reward.

When last seen, the 4-foot-tall girl with light brown shoulder-length hair and brown eyes was wearing a blue dress, a denim jacket, white socks with yellow trim and white tennis shoes, authorities said.

Sheriff’s spokesman Jim Bryant said investigators working around the clock followed more than 600 inconclusive leads and conducted more than 1,000 interviews with the girl’s family and friends, people who attended the swap meet and dozens of known sex offenders and drug dealers in the area.

In the course of the investigation, sheriff’s authorities arrested eight people on drug charges, Bryant said.

The girl’s father, Gary Mangos, said he thought her kidnaping might be linked to the disappearance of 3-year-old Laura Bradbury, who was believed to have been abducted while on a family camping trip at nearby Joshua Tree monument in 1984. But sheriff’s detectives have discounted that suspicion.