2 Burned Bodies Found in Tourists’ Rented Car

The hunt for three tourists who vanished outside Yosemite a month ago took a grisly turn Friday as investigators discovered two charred bodies in the trunk of the tourists’ burned-out car.

Authorities were working to identify the bodies while they mounted an aggressive search for a third victim in the dense Sierra woods where the car was torched and abandoned.

“We need to find the animals who did this,” said Carole Carrington, after hearing that two family members may have been found. “There are terrible people out there, and we don’t want them to do this to anybody else’s daughter or granddaughter.”

The discovery came a day after a Tuolumne County resident saw the rental car Thursday afternoon along a pine-draped utility road near twisting California 108 on the western slope of the Sierra.

With darkness falling Thursday, FBI crime scene experts delayed a search of the car until Friday morning, when they found the remains. The cause of death has not been determined.

Carole Sund, 42, her 15-year-old daughter, Juliana, and Silvina Pelosso, 16, a family friend visiting from Argentina, have been missing since Feb. 16, when they failed to return home from their trip. Dental records will be used to determine if the bodies are theirs.

The last confirmed sighting of the women, investigators say, was Feb. 15 at the Cedar Lodge in El Portal, a rustic enclave outside Yosemite National Park, a two-hour drive from where the car was found.

The disappearance and the massive manhunt that followed have captured national attention and made headlines in Argentina, where Pelosso’s parents own a small bottling plant in the city of Cordoba. Carrington and other members of Sund’s family run a prosperous real estate investment firm in Eureka and are offering a $50,000 reward for information in the case.

Resident Finds Car

The biggest break yet came about 2:15 p.m. Thursday when a resident called the California Highway Patrol to report a burned car a few hundred feet north of California 108, which bustles most days with local traffic and tourists headed to the Dodge Ridge ski area.

FBI Special Agent James M. Maddock said officials were unable to immediately determine the cause of death. “The car is very badly burned,” he said. “The same is true for the victims.”

Although the prospects appear grim for somehow finding the third woman alive, Maddock said agents “have hope for a third victim. We’re doing everything we can to locate not only the victim, but those responsible.”

A two-mile stretch of California 108 was closed by CHP officers, with only local residents and those with business farther up the road allowed entry. The area was cordoned off with yellow tape.

Although FBI agents declined to discuss the crime scene in detail, it appeared from TV helicopter footage that the ground around the car was charred. If the car was torched at the spot last month, as some law enforcement officials speculate, it might have been set ablaze when snow covered the ground and the trees, helping quell the spread of fire.

Discovery of the car has generated a flood of new leads.

“We’ve gotten very good tips in the last 24 hours, tips that have identified people we’re taking a very hard look at,” Maddock said. He declined to identify any suspects, but said, “It is going to be, I believe, someone who was very familiar with this area, who knew exactly where they wanted to put that vehicle.”

In the tiny towns clustered along the highway, many residents were less sure that someone with local knowledge was involved. Several said the spot where the car was found is frequented by hikers and seems precariously close to the highway. The access road also is an unofficial dump for some residents, which has generated complaints from neighbors.

“There are more remote places, with mine shafts you could drive a car in,” said Butch Tome, a resident for a decade. “If you’re a local, there’s lots of other spots.”

Others said the discovery made them uneasy. “Kids catch the school bus right there,” said Ghia Huckstep, a waitress who lives in Long Barn, which has a lodge, a few homes and little else. “It’s eerie. I walk with my kids right there all the time.”

At least two residents said they recalled seeing Sund and her two young companions alive around the time of the disappearance.

Penny Mann, who owns a gift shop in nearby Twain Harte, said the women walked into her store Feb. 16 and browsed. Up the road in Sierra Village, Louise Guffmiller said the women stopped at her gas station around the same time.

“They seemed happy-go-lucky, like they were having a good day,” said Guffmiller, whose station is about a mile from where the car was found. “I remember the one girl said she was from Argentina.”

Guffmiller said she tried to report her sighting to authorities after seeing news reports about the missing women, but couldn’t generate any interest. So she “told everyone on this hill to watch for them.”

Investigators are attempting to confirm those reports. During the past month, the FBI has received scores of sightings throughout Central California that turned out to be unreliable.

Maddock said the FBI had notified family members, who have spent the weeks since the disappearance camped out at a Modesto hotel.

‘Please Continue to . . . Pray for Us’

The Pelossos went into seclusion after meeting with the FBI. But they released a hand-written note through a chaplain that said, in part:

“This long ordeal has been very difficult for all the families. . . . Please continue to support and pray for us that information will come that will allow us to get on with our lives.”

Authorities have speculated for more than two weeks that the missing women were the victims of a violent crime and probably dead. Last week, agents said they believe that the women probably met foul play at or near the lodge in El Portal.

On Friday, the FBI’s Maddock said the last confirmed sighting remains at the Cedar Lodge on the evening of Feb. 15. Sund and the two teenagers had planned to return from their trip the next day.

Federal agents have been targeting residents in and around El Portal who have a criminal past, using a process of elimination to narrow the field of suspects. Officials would not comment Friday on any suspects either near Yosemite or to the north in Tuolumne County.

After the women vanished, an exhaustive hunt of roads leading from the park turned up no sign of them or their bright red Pontiac Grand Prix. Sund’s wallet insert, with credit cards and driver’s license intact, was found a few days later on a street in Modesto, a two-hour drive from Yosemite.

The FBI has had more than 100 agents working the case, and has been backed up by scores of law enforcement officers from Modesto, Mariposa County and elsewhere in the Central Valley. With the discovery of the bodies, the investigation will now be led by the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Department, which has jurisdiction over any homicide in the region.

Sheriff Richard L. Rogers said officers will fan out from the spot where the car was found “basically in a grid search” of the densely forested terrain. In addition, forensic crime experts are poring over the car for clues. Federal and state arson experts also are at the scene.

“I foresee we’ll be here for several days doing exactly these things,” Rogers said, cautioning that patience is needed because “this process is very time-consuming, and we only get one opportunity to do it right.”

One officer said the fire that engulfed the car will make gathering evidence tough, even for FBI experts. “Fire is a very effective way to cover up a crime,” the officer said.

Times staff writers Jenifer Warren and Mark Arax and the Associated Press contributed to this story.