Snow Delays Search for Evidence in Forest

Attempts to crack the case of three Yosemite sightseers who vanished a month ago slowed Saturday as a snowstorm stalled a search of rugged terrain where their burned-out car and two charred bodies were found.

Investigators continued to gather evidence from the car, but called off an extensive hunt after 3 inches of snow fell on the Tuolumne County forest where the vehicle was torched and abandoned.

Law enforcement officials said it will be at least Monday before they can identify the bodies discovered in the trunk of the red Pontiac Grand Prix.

An FBI official said the identification was delayed because dental records for the three women--Carole Sund, 42, her 15-year-old daughter Juliana and Silvina Pelosso, 16, a family friend from Argentina--had to be flown in from the agency’s crime lab outside Washington.

Those records will be required to identify the bodies, which were burned beyond recognition. But authorities believe they are two of the missing trio.

“To find the car was both a relief and a very sad thing for us,” said James M. Maddock, the FBI’s top agent on the case. “Obviously everybody held out the hope, no matter how remote, that we would be able to find somebody alive. There is relief in the sense that it brings closure for the families and also brings us an opportunity to identify the people who are responsible for this.”

Authorities said they conducted an extensive sweep after the rental car was discovered Thursday, but have so far failed to find a third victim. With snow on the ground Saturday, they were concerned that searchers might inadvertently trample potential evidence, thus the decision to delay the hunt.

Investigators completed their study of the car Saturday, and it was moved in the afternoon. A team of FBI fingerprint experts plan to go over the car again in the coming days.

Forensic experts found numerous personal items in and around the car, Sheriff Richard L. Rogers said, but he declined to say what they were.

“We have items in the car, we have items that were burned, we have items away from the car,” Rogers said, adding that some of the objects may have been there before the vehicle was dumped. “We collect everything, that way we don’t miss anything when we process it.”

The sheriff, who has jurisdiction over the investigation, also declined to speculate how long the car may have been at the densely wooded spot along an old logging road a few hundred feet off busy California 108. But he confirmed that it had indeed been set afire at the site, though the blaze did not spread and went unreported.

Meanwhile, tips have poured in at a rate of about 300 a day since the discovery of the car.

Maddock said investigators have gotten reports from upward of a dozen residents who claim to have seen the three women in Tuolumne County. So far, investigators have not substantiated those claims.

“It doesn’t mean they didn’t happen,” Maddock said. “But we don’t have sufficient information that’s reliable or credible enough to go with.”

Penny Mann, who owns a gift shop in nearby Twain Harte, said the trio walked into her store Feb. 16 and browsed.

“I saw that photo in the newspaper and I told my husband: ‘That’s her. That’s the woman I saw,’ ” Mann said Saturday. She tried to report the sighting to the FBI, but couldn’t get through. Last Sunday, she tried again and succeeded.

Officials say the last confirmed sighting of the Eureka woman and her two young companions was the evening of Feb. 15 in a restaurant at the lodge where they were staying outside Yosemite.