Hunt for Missing Woman Intensifies

Assisted by dogs, scores of search and rescue workers will scour the canyons and fields of Simi Valley again today in search of a missing Moorpark woman.

Authorities spent much of Friday with bloodhounds in an effort to find 20-year-old Megan Barroso, whose bullet-riddled car was found abandoned near a Moorpark Freeway overpass in the early hours of July 5.

Sheriff’s deputies set out Friday morning with dogs searching for Barroso’s scent. The search largely retraced earlier efforts in hills, canyons and freeway frontage in and around Simi Valley, Senior Deputy Frank Underlin said.

Officers were summoned to Tapo Canyon after noon by a resident, Erin McGuire, whose dog had begun barking excitedly on a walk through a cattle ranch. A search of a ravine yielded what appeared to be animal bones, but officials plan to return to the area today.

Barroso’s mother is expected to join the search this morning.

The search has intensified in recent days following the arrest of 30-year-old Vincent Sanchez, a suspect in the rapes of 11 women in Simi Valley over the past five years.

Since his arrest Sunday night in connection with the sexual assaults, authorities say they have found evidence, including an assault rifle, suggesting that Sanchez may be linked to Barroso’s disappearance.

As of Friday afternoon, Sanchez had not been charged in the Barroso incident.

Roommates of Sanchez said authorities returned to the Simi Valley home they rent Thursday night in search of additional evidence, knocking holes in walls and overturning furniture until about 1 a.m. Most of the search focused on Sanchez’s room, the roommates said, where investigators seized property that included the room’s wall-to-wall carpeting. A mattress was stripped of its bedding, and an entertainment center appeared ransacked, they said.

Despite an intensive manhunt, it wasn’t until Sanchez was arrested on suspicion of burglary last weekend that authorities got their big break.

While in custody on the burglary charge, Sanchez called a roommate and asked him to destroy a bag he had placed in the trash outside their Woodrow Avenue house. Inside the bag, the roommates found photographs and videos of naked women bound, gagged and bleeding. The roommates then called police.

Simi Valley City Council members will determine in coming days whether the roommates are eligible for the $25,000 reward fund for information leading to the arrest.

Sanchez appeared in court Friday to enter a plea on 57 charges of rape and burglary, but Superior Court Judge Art Gutierrez postponed the hearing until Tuesday, giving Sanchez time to find representation. During the hearing, Gutierrez granted a prosecutor’s request to temporarily revoke Sanchez’s bail, previously set at $1 million.

“The gravity of the facts . . . surrounding the case shows that Mr. Sanchez is a danger to the community and upon the lives of the complaining witnesses,” the judge said.

As Gutierrez spoke, Sanchez kept his head lowered and showed no emotion. His attorney will have an opportunity to challenge the no-bail order at a later date, Gutierrez said.

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Times staff writer Jenifer Ragland contributed to this story.