Missing student: Clues expand

A toolbox found July 8 and believed discarded by a registered sex offender wanted for questioning in the disappearance of a female Orange County student contained rubber gloves, rope and a scrub brush, a law enforcement source revealed Monday.

Earlier reports on the box’s contents had not listed those items.

Donna Haghighat Jou, 19, was last seen June 23 at a party at John Steven Burgess’ West Los Angeles home. About two weeks later, Burgess’ toolbox was found abandoned on the side of a residential road 1 1/2 miles away.

Authorities said then that the toolbox contained a license plate assigned to Burgess’ truck and a motorcycle helmet believed to have been used by Jou, but a law enforcement source said Monday that the toolbox also included the gloves, rope and brush.

Investigators believe that Burgess, 35, met Jou on the Internet and picked her up on his motorcycle near the apartment she shares with her mother in Rancho Santa Margarita on the day of the party. She had told people she was going on a date.

Burgess goes by the alias Sinjin Stevens and owns a 1998 Ford pickup, authorities said. Neighbors saw him at his home in the 3600 block of Faris Drive in Palms for a few days after the party, but he has not been seen since.

Jou, a physics major at San Diego State University, is close to her family and stayed in daily contact with them until her disappearance.

Her father, Reza Jou, a system integration manager for NASA’s International Space Station based in Houston, said his daughter was academically brilliant, with a 1760 SAT score, but lacked street savvy.

“She was a very naive person,” he said in an interview last week. “She would trust people without asking questions.”

In the meantime, the family would continue its search for her, he said.

“It’s really killing us. The wait is unbelievable,” he said. “Every day is like a month.”

garrett.therolf@latimes.com

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Times staff writer Christopher Goffard contributed to this report.