Searchers Find No Sign of 3 Tourists Near Yosemite; FBI Intensifies Probe

Authorities were nearly finished Friday with an exhaustive search in the Sierra for a Eureka woman and two teenagers missing for 11 days, as the FBI stepped up its investigation of the mysterious case.

Searchers discovered nine abandoned or stolen cars while combing major roads leading from Yosemite National Park, but failed to find the bright red Pontiac Grand Prix rented by Carole Sund, her daughter and a friend.

The three are last known to have been seen Feb. 16, the day they were to return from a visit to Yosemite. Sund, 42, was accompanied by her 15-year-old daughter, Julie, and Silvina Pelosso, 16, a family friend who was visiting from Argentina.

Nick Rossi, an FBI spokesman, said a foot search by scores of law enforcement officers had covered 90% of the terrain surrounding access routes leading from the park.

“The likelihood of an accident in the immediate vicinity of Yosemite is decreasing,” Rossi said.

But authorities cautioned that there remains some possibility that the car may have plunged into a remote canyon hidden by thick brush or deep snow and won’t be discovered until spring thaw.

Meanwhile, FBI agents are expanding efforts to determine if Sund and the girls might have been victims of foul play. A wallet insert containing Sund’s credit cards and driver’s license was found a week ago in Modesto, a two-hour drive from Yosemite. The discovery prompted concern that they might have been victims of a carjacking or other crime.

Rossi said FBI experts on child abductions were being consulted. In addition, critical incident response teams at the bureau’s Washington headquarters were contacted.

Over the last two days, FBI teams had collected potential evidence discovered in the Buck Meadows area along California 120, Rossi said. But nothing could be connected to the missing tourists, he said, declining to elaborate.