San Diego Police Seeking Missing Sheriff’s Deputy

San Diego police Monday were investigating a report that a 32-year-old sheriff’s deputy assigned to the Santee station is missing after he failed to show up for work Sunday and Monday nights, authorities said.

Samuel Abalos Valdez, whom co-workers describe as “very reliable,” did not come home after telling his wife that he was going dancing at a Mission Valley disco Saturday night. He never returned home and failed to report to work at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, police said.

His 29-year-old wife, Lorna, a lab assistant who works the night shift at Mercy Hospital, reported him missing about 8 p.m. Sunday.

“I went to work (Saturday) night thinking he’d be home around one, 2 o’clock at the latest. I called him at 2:30 and the answering machine went off, meaning (he was) not home,” she said. “When I came home in the morning, my son said, ‘No, Daddy didn’t come home.’ ”

Married 7 Years

The couple live in Paradise Hills with their three boys, ages 3, 5 and 8. The Valdezes have been married seven years.

Police said Valdez went to a shooting range on Saturday and later withdrew about $200 from an automated teller machine. He also visited a daughter from a previous marriage before returning home and telling his wife he wanted to go to a Mission Valley nightclub called Confetti.

Lorna Valdez said her husband had told her he wanted to buy her a ring and that was why he withdrew the money Saturday. She said he also told his daughter, who lives in National City, that he was going dancing that night.

“I’ve called different hospitals, trauma centers, and there’s nothing,” Lorna Valdez said. She telephoned her husband’s parents in Fresno, but they said they had not heard from him.

Police said they do not suspect foul play.

“According to his wife and supervisors at the Sheriff’s Department, they all talk of him as very reliable. He and his wife were not having any fights or arguments and when he left Saturday night he was in a good mood,” said Police Department spokesman Dave Cohen.

Sheriff’s deputies said they are contacting friends and colleagues who may know more about Valdez’s whereabouts.

“It’s out of character for him to do something like this,” said Sgt. Joe Maes of the Santee station. “In the past, his record’s been so good that we don’t understand why he has disappeared.”

Valdez had been working there for about two months after previously working at the County Jail in Chula Vista, his wife said.

Valdez has black hair, brown eyes, a fair complexion, and is 5 feet, 11 inches tall. He weighs about 150 pounds and has a scar under his right eye.

He was last seen wearing a grayish-black sweater, gray pants, gray shoes, a Seiko gold tone watch and his gun, his wife said. He was driving a black 1987 Buick with two bumper stickers--one for Mercy Hospital and the other for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.