Woman, 20, Disappears; Last Seen at Bus Stop : Crime: Placentia police are investigating. They fear the Fullerton College student, a recent immigrant from Iraq, may have been abducted.

Police said Friday that a 20-year-old woman last seen Tuesday afternoon waiting for bus may have been abducted.

Investigators are treating the disappearance of Mahtab Ghalandar, a Fullerton College student, as a “suspicious missing persons case” and are asking the public for help in locating her, said Corinne Loomis, a spokeswoman for the Placentia Police Department.

The disappearance comes seven months after another Placentia woman, Cal State Fullerton student Cathy Torrez, vanished while on her way home from work. Torrez’s body was found a week after her disappearance, and the homicide remains unsolved. She had been stabbed to death.

Police said they know of no connections between the two cases. But for some residents, Ghalandar’s disappearance has revived the trauma of the Torrez killing.

“My first reaction is that my stomach turned,” said Mayor Norman Z. Eckenrode. “We’ve already had one incident like this and I’m praying we don’t have another one.”

Police said they remain baffled by the Ghalandar case four days after she was reported missing by her family.

“She vanished. . . . She had maybe $20 in her purse, the clothes she was wearing and her books from school,” Loomis said. “We know of no motive for her to run away. This is very out of character for her.”

Ghalandar lives with her parents and a younger sister in a Placentia apartment. The family moved to the United States from Iran about a year ago, Loomis said. Like her parents, Ghalandar speaks little English.

Police said Ghalandar is 5-foot-5, weighs about 140 pounds and has dark brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen Tuesday about 2:15 p.m. standing at a bus stop on Chapman Avenue across the street from Fullerton College. She was wearing an oatmeal-colored shirt with flowers on it and a gold chain with Arabic letters, Loomis said.

Ghalandar’s family said they knew something was wrong when she did not return home Tuesday afternoon. Ghalandar had plans with her sister to pick up some photos from a drug store later that day, police and family members said.

The family went to the Placentia Police Department Tuesday evening and filed a missing persons report. A detective was assigned to the case within hours, Police Chief Manuel Ortega said.

“I know that when we put this out . . . (it) conjured up (memories of) Cathy,” Ortega said. “That’s why we’re doing everything and will follow up on everything until we run out of leads.”

Loomis said that the detective’s first task was to determine whether Ghalandar ran away from home.

Investigators became convinced Thursday that foul play was involved after they tracked down a Fullerton College classmate who said he walked Ghalandar to the bus stop on Tuesday at 2:15 p.m., Loomis said.

Just before going to the bus stop, Ghalandar called a family friend to see if he could pick her up, police said. But the friend could not drive her home because he was en route to Laguna Beach to buy a car, Loomis said.

The friend was in Laguna Beach at the time police believe Ghalandar disappeared and is not considered a suspect in the case, Loomis said.

After the phone call, Ghalandar and her classmate walked to the bus stop, where they parted company, Loomis said.

“She just vanished from there,” Loomis said. “She never made it home and no one has heard from her.”

Police and family members said Ghalandar acted normally on the day she disappeared and did not appear to be burdened by troubles. She does not work and does not have a driver’s license, they said.

“She never had any problems. She was never mad at my mother or mad at my dad,” said Ghalandar’s 12-year-old sister, Mahsa, the only member of the family who speaks English fluently. “I hope she is fine.”

Police said that Tuesday was a “normal school day” for Ghalandar. She arrived at Fullerton College at 10 a.m. and left at 2 p.m. after attending an English-as-a-second-language class, Loomis said.

“We know of nothing that would have precipitated this kind of thing,” Loomis said.

The Ghalandar case brought “feelings of deja vu” to the Placentia Police Department, Ortega said.

“We know full well the similarities between the Torrez case and this young lady,” Ortega said. “Suddenly everybody . . . (was) saying, is there some tie-in?

“We have no reason at this point in time to believe that we are dealing with the same (perpetrator). They were both 20, they were both single and they both attend college. And they both live in Placentia. But that’s all the similarity.”

Torres’ disappearance last Feb. 12 prompted friends and family members to launch a highly publicized search for her. But their hopes were dashed when her body was found in the trunk of her car, which was discovered in a hospital parking lot a week after she disappeared.

Placentia police have requested that anyone with information about the case call them at (714) 993-8164.