Word on Missing Woman Sought

The father of a 20-year-old Moorpark woman whose car was found riddled with bullets under a freeway overpass urged her friends to come forward with any details that might help investigators.

“They should say all they know, even if it’s not all good,” Art Barroso, father of Megan Barroso, said Friday as Ventura County sheriff’s detectives wound up the second day of their investigation without finding the missing woman or zeroing in on a suspect.

“My daughter is gone, taken,” Barroso said. “She may be dead. And the person who did it is still out there.”

Ventura County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Nelson said Friday that detectives were interviewing and re-interviewing as many as 50 people in connection with Barroso’s disappearance, including family members, co-workers, friends and people who attended the same July 4 gathering as the young woman.

Art Barroso said detectives are scheduled to formally interview him today. “I’m glad they’re leaving no stone unturned,” he said.

Investigators also were combing through the dark green Pontiac Sunfire that Megan Barroso was driving, as well as her personal effects.

“We’re trying to retrace her steps for the last several days, anyone with whom she may have come in contact,” Nelson said. “We don’t know if she is alive or dead.”

Sheriff’s officials said Barroso’s family and friends told them the part-time Moorpark College student, who worked for an Oxnard clothing manufacturer, had no enemies and no criminal past or connections.

“She’s never mentioned knowing anyone with weapons, or any heartbreak from boyfriends,” her father said. “We have no inkling from her personal life as to why this would happen to her.”

Officials have not said how many shots were fired into the car and did not yet know whether blood found inside the car is that of the missing woman.

If someone was out to get Megan Barroso, investigators and family said, it was not clear why.

A tip that she was related to a lottery winner proved true, but perhaps irrelevant; the relative, the wife of a cousin, won $30,000 more than a decade ago.

Megan Barroso has the same last name as an Oxnard police officer who shot and killed a parolee earlier this year in what was ruled self-defense. However, sheriff’s officials have not said they suspect any connection.

Art Barroso said the Oxnard officer is not related to the family, but he said there is another Barroso in Ventura County law enforcement who is a cousin.

Megan Barroso was last seen driving home alone from a friend’s Thousand Oaks house about 2:30 a.m. Thursday.