Police Search for 11-Year-Old Girl, Neighbor

Orange County law enforcement authorities intensified a search for an 11-year-old girl who got into the car of a family friend while walking to school Monday and vanished, possibly heading for Mexico, police said.

Guadalupe Hernandez Vasquez was leaving her Laguna Hills apartment with her 9-year-old sister Monday morning when the girls noticed a family friend in a parked car in front of the building, her sister, Ana Rosa Hernandez Vasquez said. Guadalupe walked toward the Toyota Tercel, as her sister was cautioning her not to go.

“She told me to wait for her in front of the [Lomarena Elementary] school,” Ana Rosa said. “I went inside and called my mother. My mother doesn’t want that boy to see my sister. She’s too young.”

Police and witnesses say Guadalupe left with 21-year-old Asael Perez Celis, a San Clemente construction worker who had lived with the girls’ family for 15 months and had recently moved into an apartment in the same complex. The girls’ parents were already at work when Guadalupe disappeared about 8:30 a.m., they said.

Although Guadalupe apparently left with Perez willingly, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department is treating the case as an abduction in light of Guadalupe’s age, said Jim Amormino, the department representative.

“Any way you look at it, you have an 11-year-old girl with a 21-year-old man,” Amormino said. “The sister saw her get in the car, but we don’t know what else has transpired since then. She told her sister to meet her at school. Maybe he led her to believe he was going to talk to her and drop her at school, and the next thing you know they’re in Mexico.”

Late Monday, Guadalupe’s mother, Maria Vasquez, said police called to tell her the car had been found in San Clemente and that a witness had seen the couple in San Ysidro. It was unclear how they arrived in San Ysidro, close to the Mexican border.

Vasquez and Guadalupe’s stepfather, Roberto Vera, first met Perez at the apartment complex about two years ago. They rented a room to Perez and his father for about 15 months, they said. When Guadalupe’s stepfather recently noticed Perez being “affectionate” toward the girl about three months ago, he asked the man to leave.

But Perez continued to call Guadalupe and to write her love letters he sent through other friends, her mother said. The two had been discussing leaving for Mexico together since December, her stepfather learned in their correspondence.

“I never had any problems with him,” said Vasquez, as she sobbed in her apartment Monday afternoon. “I thought he was a good man. But he was after her and he was wrapping her up in his world. I kept telling him she’s only a girl. She started rebelling and telling me that he was her boyfriend.”

After Guadalupe disappeared, the police searched Perez’s apartment and found several photographs of the girl, letters she had mailed him, and her Mexican birth certificate, her mother said. Guadalupe’s friends turned in letters written by Perez that they were keeping for her.

In one recent letter, Perez wrote in Spanish: “I am writing to tell you that I love you. I feel devastated at night without you . . . If you still want to leave with me, let me know. If you don’t want to, I’m going to leave once and for all.”

The Sheriff’s Department alerted all of the state’s law enforcement agencies, airports and the border patrol. They also initiated the first CARE alert, which uses radio and TV to get the public’s help in locating a missing child.

The girl was last seen driving away in a two-door, gray Toyota Tercel, with a license plate of 4BZX775.

“I just want her to come back,” her mother said. “She’s so young. I don’t want her to suffer. I hope he talks to God and brings her home. I just want him to leave her in peace. I don’t want to harm him.”