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Jolissa Fuentes: Missing 22-year-old’s family hit out at police for lack of progress in search

Jolissa Fuentes was last seen on 7 August at an AM/PM gas station

Sravasti Dasgupta
Monday 22 August 2022 14:25 BST
(RELATED) Search continues for Atlanta woman missing for several weeks

The parents of missing 22-year-old Jolissa Fuentes have hit out at California law enforcement officials over a lack of progress in the search for their daughter.

Ms Fuentes was last seen on 7 August at an AM/PM gas station, according to the Selma Police Department. She was driving a 2011 Hyundai Accent.

Over two weeks since she went missing, Selma police have been working with the Fresno Sheriff’s Office and using some of their resources, such as helicopters, to assist with the search.

In addition, federal law enforcement officers are also involved in the search.

“What I don’t understand is, if you’ve got all these resources and other agencies involved — police say the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] is getting involved — we should have something. These are some of our top, trained agencies in the United States, supposedly,” Ms Fuentes’s father Joey told the New York Post.

On Friday, Police Chief Rudy Alcaraz said they had found footage of Ms Fuentes driving on her own after that.

“We picked her up on camera after that. However, we’re not going to relinquish that information, as we… have to kind of consider all avenues,” Mr Alcaraz said, according to Fox News Digital.

“Right now, there’s nothing that is insinuating foul play, but, again, we don’t have much information.”

However, Ms Fuentes’ parents believe she may have been taken against her will.

Her parents said that, on the night of her disappearance, she had stopped at her grandmother’s house to grab some money and then headed to the AM/PM. They added that their daughter has not been in touch since, something unusual for her.

The couple are also conducting their own search for their daughter.

“We’re doing all we can do. We don’t know what to do,” Mr Fuentes said.

He added that he and his wife are trying to do everything they can to find their daughter without compromising law enforcement’s investigation into the case.

“The family’s done a wonderful job of putting information out about Jolissa. We are working with all of our state, local and federal agencies to try to get the best information and have done pretty much everything we can think of or has been suggested to us… to try and find Jolissa. We’re just hoping for more information that will lead us to her,” said Mr Alcaraz.

The search for Ms Fuentes is taking place about four hours south of another massive search for missing 16-year-old Kiely Rodni in Truckee, California.

On Sunday, a YouTube dive team claimed to have recovered Kiely’s body from the Prosser Creek Reservoir.

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