Search for Ojai Teen Continues

More than 200 people shelved holiday plans and spent Christmas Day helping sheriff’s deputies search for a 14-year-old girl missing since last Saturday.

For the third consecutive day, authorities and residents combed the roads, rugged hills and canyons of the Ojai Valley for Kali Manley, last seen a week ago in a green pickup truck with two unidentified males outside a Mira Monte convenience store.

“We’re trying to blanket the entire valley, hoping that something will come up,” said Deputy Maureen Hookstra outside the department’s command post at Nordhoff High School. “So far, we haven’t found anything.”

Beginning their search just after dawn, deputies and residents fanned out across a 100-square-mile section of the valley looking for clues to her disappearance.

Coordinated from the department’s command post, deputies dispatched more than 60 search parties Friday using helicopters, all-terrain vehicles and groups of walking volunteers to comb the area’s creeks, ditches, ravines and riverbanks.

“Nothing is being ruled out here,” Hookstra said. “We’re looking everywhere we can for anything that might be of significance.”

Since Wednesday, deputies and residents have spent dozens of hours combing the area. Investigators say they have gathered some information, but have developed no solid leads.

They will continue their search today. If Kali is not found, authorities will evaluate their progress and decide how to continue.

Late in the day, a sheriff’s deputy and members of the department’s Search and Rescue Team, using binoculars and cameras, scanned a hillside about two miles north of Wheeler Campground.

They later explained that they were investigating suspicious tire tracks.

According to police, Kali was last seen about 11 p.m. on Dec. 19 with the two males at the Circle K convenience store on California 33 across from Woodland Avenue. Authorities said they have not identified the two males, saying only that the pair may be teenagers.

Kali, a freshman from Nordhoff High who is just three days shy of her 15th birthday, is described as 5 feet, 3 inches tall and weighing 103 pounds.

She has blond hair and blue eyes and was last seen wearing a pink tank top, blue jeans and a black Adidas sweatshirt with a zipper down the front.

Her father, Charles Manley, said he spoke with his daughter by telephone at about 5 p.m. the day of her disappearance. He said she had called to say she would be spending the night at a friend’s house.

“That’s the kind of girl she is,” he said Friday. “She’d always let us know where she was going or where she was at.”

Manley said he does not believe his daughter ran away, saying that would have been out of character and there was no cause for her to do so.

“Everything was fine,” he said. “Her grades are good, she has some new friends. . . . I can’t think of one reason why she’d do that.”

The fact it was Christmas Day seemed to have driven more people to assist in the search.

Jim and Barbara Vize helped search a mile-long section of Gridley Road with their daughters Sarah, Suzanne and Juli.

“This is about having a sense of commitment and community,” Barbara Vize said. “We would have done this for anybody.”

Despite suffering from angina, Tom Stafford, a former candidate for county supervisor, hoofed a hilly section of California 33 near Matilija Road, keeping alert for anything out of the ordinary.

“If you can help, you do,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow. “And I could, so that’s why I’m here.”

Steve Krein said Merry Christmas and then goodbye to his wife and children early Friday to join the search.

Krein, who led the team that found Sherri Dally’s body at the bottom of a ravine off Canada Larga Road in 1996, spent the holiday clawing through bushes and brambles, studying footprints and picking around drain pipes.

Although he was glad to help, Krein hoped he wouldn’t make the same grisly discovery he made more than two years ago.

“It’s a doubled-edged sword,” he said, examining a tuft of thistles for any signs of breakage. “On the one hand you hope you can help, on the other hand you don’t want to find anything.”

Manley said the outpouring of assistance from friends and neighbors has helped him and his family deal with an emotionally difficult time.

“It’s been such a hard time for us, but seeing all these people has been nice,” he said. “It’s all been very heartening.”

As the sun began to set, casting long shadows over the rumpled mountains, search crews began heading back to the command post to prepare for the next day’s operation.

Hookstra said the search teams will continue to go over the same 100-square-mile area today, beginning at Foster Park to the south and extending past Rose Valley and Upper Ojai to Lake Casitas.

Despite the manpower dedicated to the search, she said it is a difficult area to cover given the steep hillsides and brush-choked canyons.

But that won’t stop volunteers such as Krein, who sympathize with the family and understand the sense of urgency.

“I treat this like I would if I were looking for my own kid,” Krein said. “I’d want to be out here all night and not leave until I found her.”

Times staff writer Tracy Wilson contributed to this story.