Search for Missing Women Focuses on Yosemite Area

The FBI said Tuesday that it does not believe a Eureka woman, her daughter and an exchange student who have been missing for a week were kidnapped, and has shifted the focus of the search to the western outskirts of Yosemite National Park.

The agency said new witness accounts show the women were in Yosemite Valley a week ago, and seen that same afternoon asking for directions to a meadow along California 120 just outside the park’s west entrance.

The new sightings come after earlier reports that the women were last seen the night before--on Presidents Day--in the lobby of a remote lodge in nearby El Portal.

“We’re trying to move the timeline along as much as we can, with the most credible information we have,” said FBI Special Agent James M. Maddock.

Carole Sund, 43, was on a trip with her daughter, Julie, and Silvina Pelosso, an exchange student from Argentina, when the three disappeared last week.

Witnesses report seeing Carole Sund and Silvina in Yosemite Valley on the morning of Feb. 16, and all three women asking for directions to the meadow. A sporty red car matching the description of the one the women rented may have been seen between noon and 2 p.m. in the grove’s parking lot.

“We’re focusing both investigative and search efforts in that area, and logical routes out of that area,” Maddock said.

There have been no ransom notes or any other indication that the women were kidnapped, but foul play has not been ruled out, Maddock said.

One clue that a crime may have been committed is the discovery of Sund’s wallet Friday on a city street in Modesto. The city is about 60 miles west of Cedar Lodge in rural El Portal, which is the last motel in which the women were staying before they disappeared.

Sund’s husband, Jens, said he last talked with his wife on Presidents Day, when she called from the Cedar Lodge. The family has offered a $250,000 reward.