Police, Volunteers Seek 2 Young Sisters Missing in South-Central

A team of police officers and volunteers combed through South-Central Los Angeles on Saturday, searching for two sisters, ages 11 and 12, who have been missing since Friday morning.

More than 30 officers and 16 Police Explorers went door to door near the sisters’ junior high school at 67th and Main streets, determined to find Cristina and Elizabeth Gonzalez.

“I put myself in the position of their mother,” said one of the searchers, Aleida Gonzalez (no relation to the missing girls), an Explorer with sisters who are about the same age as the missing children. “I want to find them for their mother.”

The area of the search runs from 67th Street to Manchester Avenue, from the Harbor Freeway to San Pedro Street.

“It gets to me because they’re girls and they’re alone,” said Police Explorer Trinidad Contreras, as he steadily queried merchants and residents on Florence Avenue.

The girls’ mother, Maria Gonzalez, dropped them off two blocks from Bethune Junior High School at 7:30 a.m. Friday. But they were not there when their mother returned to pick them up at 3 p.m. School records indicated that the girls did not attend school, although a classmate reported seeing them on campus.

About 2 p.m. Saturday, a friend of the family told police he saw the girls board an eastbound MTA bus earlier that afternoon at Slauson and Central avenues, Police Lt. Jim Voge said.

Voge said police are proceeding as if the girls were abducted because there is no evidence they were unhappy at home or school. “I hope they’ve run away. I hope we’re wrong on this thing,” Voge said. “We have 12- and 11-year-old females. That’s always something you (worry) about.”

Maria Gonzalez said her daughters rarely left the house when not at school. “Oh, God, I’m so worried,” she said.

Police officers have been using the Bethune Junior High School’s central office as a command post since the sisters were reported missing. An area map, lists of the girls’ classmates and addresses of registered sex offenders are tacked up on walls usually reserved for announcements on gym classes and school lunches.

Both girls are Latino and have brown hair and brown eyes. Cristina, 11, is 5 feet tall, weighs 115 pounds and has what was described as a “lazy” left eye. She was wearing blue jeans with white stripes, a multicolored blouse and black tennis shoes.

Elizabeth, 12, is 4 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds. She was wearing a white shirt with “California” written on it, blue sweat pants and blue tennis shoes.

Anyone with information about the sisters is urged to call to the Newton station at (213) 485-5264.

Officer Patty Fuller said many officers who have children are putting extra effort into the search. “I’m a mom,” she said, “I would want the same to be done for my child.”