SANTA CLARITA : Residents Join Search for Real Estate Agent
Dozens of people in the Santa Clarita community of Val Verde joined Thursday with sheriff’s search-and-rescue parties to look for a real estate agent who vanished a day earlier.
Paula Harrington, 26, disappeared after leaving her office Wednesday afternoon with an unidentified man who asked to see vacant, remote houses in the unincorporated community of 1,500. The area is off California 126 about five miles northwest of the Magic Mountain theme park.
By late afternoon, deputies suspended their search and announced that a man taken into custody earlier had been cleared and released. Detectives who had feared that Harrington had been abducted and killed changed their approach after bank security cameras recorded the missing woman making a $300 withdrawal from an automated teller machine in Hacienda Heights.
“For sure it’s a missing person, and possibly a kidnaping,” said Lt. Donald Bear, a sheriff’s detective.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
