Sierra LaMar: Search For Missing California Teen Goes Underwater
She vanished on March 16.
April 14, 2012— -- Nearly a month after her disappearance, the search for missing teen Sierra LaMar has moved underwater.
Divers searched two reservoirs near the teen's Morgan Hill, Calif., home but did not find any signs of the missing cheerleader.
Investigators plan to analyze underwater sonar images taken earlier this week.
Despite the severe weather much of the state experienced on Friday, volunteers plan to spend the weekend searching for LaMar, 15, who disappeared on March 16 while on the way to catch her school bus.
Police have received more than 1,200 tips but have few leads, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
The teen's parents reached out to her friends, and grew more anxious when one friend said she wasn't in class earlier that day.
They decided to contact authorities around 5 p.m., after her high school sent them an email saying Sierra hadn't shown up for school that day.
"We want you to come back home. We know you will find your way back to us," Sierra's mother, Marlene LaMar, said at a vigil a week after her daughter's disappearance.
Marc Klaas, whose daughter Polly was kidnapped and murdered in 1994, is also on the case and has helped LaMar set up a search center.
Police found a bag belonging to the teen discarded near an intersection close to her home two days after she vanished.
Santa Clara County Sheriff's Sgt. Jose Cardoza said her Juicy brand bag contained a neatly folded pair of pants and a T-shirt.
Investigators also found Sierra's cell phone on the side of a road in the opposite direction of her bus stop a day after her disappearance.
The charger for the teen's cell phone was found in her room at home, and the phone looked as if it had been tossed.
Authorities said the phone provided no clues, nor did investigators find any helpful clues on her computer.