Parents of missing Texas teen Cami Olmos clash over why she vanished on Christmas Eve as new dashcam footage shows the last time she was seen | Retrui News | Retrui
Parents of missing Texas teen Cami Olmos clash over why she vanished on Christmas Eve as new dashcam footage shows the last time she was seen
SOURCE:Daily Mail
The Daily Mail visited the San Antonio home where missing teen Cami Olmos vanished on the morning of Christmas Eve to speak with her parents as new dashcam footage shows her shocking final sighting.
It is day seven in the working-class northwestern suburbs of San Antonio, and 19-year-old Cami Olmos is still nowhere to be found.
Searchers continued to comb local fields and ditches Tuesday for the community college student with the charming smile who mysteriously disappeared from the driveway of her mother's home the morning of Christmas Eve.
Although her family knows the chances of finding her alive grow slimmer each day, they say they need to believe that she will turn up.
'I'm going to tell you something,' her mother, Rosario Olmos, said to the Daily Mail Monday morning. 'Giving up is not an option.'
Camila Mendoza Olmos had been living at home while attending Northwest Vista, a nearby community college, with plans to become an orthodontist.
She finished fall semester in mid-December and was at home cooking and relaxing with her mom the night before she went missing.
The two were close, even sharing a bed together despite the fact that each had her own room in their spacious, two-story brick home.
Cami, as her loved ones call her, woke early on Wednesday, December 24. Wearing baby blue pajama shorts, a black North Face hoodie and white sneakers, she was captured by a neighbor's doorbell camera rummaging through her car in their driveway just before 7am.
Beautiful 19-year-old Cami Olmos remains missing to the horror of her parents, who spoke to the Daily Mail as searchers continue to comb fields and ditches for a sign of the teenager
A map inside the Olmos home unfurled to show the surrounding area of the San Antonio family home where Cami vanished on Christmas Eve morning
Wearing baby blue pajama shorts, a black North Face hoodie and white sneakers, she was last seen walking down a parkway near her home in a passerby's dashcam footage
Then, as if in a flash, her image disappeared from that video footage, leaving no clue where she went.
That is, until Monday, when Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar released new evidence from that day: Video from a driver's dashboard camera that, albeit fuzzy, seems to show someone meeting Cami's description walking alone northbound on Wildhorse Parkway, a few blocks from her home, just after 7am.
Salazar said investigators aren't ruling out suicide, disclosing that Cami had been depressed, grappling with 'undercurrents of suicidal ideation', and engaging in self-harm in the months leading to her disappearance.
She and her boyfriend, Nathan Gonzales, broke up in the fall, when he moved out of town for college.
Mom Rosario, a banquet server who was sleeping at the time her daughter went missing, assumed Cami had gone for a walk, as she often did in the mornings.
She called police when Cami failed to return a few hours later and she realized that her phone and all her belongings, except her car key, were still at home.
'She had lost weight, her grades were down and she was feeling low from the break-up with the boyfriend,' Cami's father, Alfonso Mendoza, a trucker who lives a block from his ex-wife, told us.
Although Rosario acknowledges that school and grades had been stressing Cami out, she disputes that she was facing serious mental health challenges.
A sighting of the Northwest Vista community college student was captured by a neighbor's doorbell camera showing her rummaging through her car in her family's driveway just before 7am on Christmas Eve
Her mother first believed that Cami had gone on her regular morning walk, but realized something was amiss when she failed to return home a few hours later and discovered she left all her belongings behind aside from her car keys
Cami's father Alfonso Mendoza (right), a trucker who lives a block from his ex-wife, told the Daily Mail that she had recently gone through struggles after a breakup with a boyfriend due to him moving away to college, leaning towards police theories she had 'suicidal ideations'
Rosario has dealt with a flood of tips, including from a psychic who assured her she was alive and in a home on a gravel road, but said she doesn't know what to believe
'People talk. But they don't know my daughter like I do,' she said, noting that Cami's recent breakup was mutual and respectful.
'It ended on good terms, in a lovely way,' she said, and 'wasn't something she was depressed about.' Nathan has been actively helping in the search for his ex.
'Cami loves God. She loves her mommy, she loves her brother, she loves her family,' added her aunt, Nancy Olmos, with whom the family first lived in San Antonio when they moved from California 13 years ago.
'That's why we know she wouldn't hurt herself.'
Extended family members from California and Mexico rushed to Rosario's side after learning of Cami's disappearance.
Aided by friends and volunteers, they spent Wednesday through Sunday combing nearby neighborhoods, vacant lots and creeks for the daughter she calls her 'princess', her 'dream'.
She said she cannot sleep, wondering if Cami is 'out there somewhere' hungry and cold in the late December wind and rain.'
'All I ever wanted to be was a mom,' Rosario said before heading to church Monday to say prayers for her daughter. 'Just pray and spread the word because my girl really needs to know that we're looking for her.'
Her aunt Nancy Olmos, with whom the family first lived in San Antonio when they moved from California 13 years ago, acknowledged Cami's deep love for her family
Cami had been living at home while attending community college, with plans to become an orthodontist She posed with friend Aisley Garcia
'All I ever wanted was to be a mom,' Rosario told the Daily Mail. 'Just pray and spread the word because my girl really needs to know that we're looking for her'
A flood of tips has rolled in since Wednesday, including one on Sunday from a psychic who assured Rosario that Cami is still alive and in a one-story home on a gravel road.
'I don't know what to believe,' Rosario told us.
Frank Trevino, 69, a retired insurance salesman, has organized search parties helping families find missing loved ones in the San Antonio area for 25 years.
He was especially drawn to Cami's case because her home is within a mile of where the body of a local woman, 28-year-old Mariadelis Labrador Siles, was found after her disappearance last spring.
Authorities ruled her death a suicide by a self-inflicted chest stab wound, but Trevino says, 'I'm not so sure about that.'
As he tells it, Cami's case stands out from other disappearances 'because we have so many questions and so little to go on.'
His hunch is that her beauty and small stature at 5ft 4in and weighing 110lbs might have made her a target.
'If they see a young woman who is alone and would not be a problem if she fought back, that makes her vulnerable to human trafficking,' he said.
One person who has been helping with the search efforts is 69-year-old Frank Trevino, a retired salesman who helped organize search parties for the past 25 years
Sheriff Javier Salazar confirmed the possibility that Cami was the victim of human trafficking
A bag of gifts for Cami remains unopened beneath the Christmas tree, including a bottle of Lancôme's La Vie Est Belle perfume which the teenager had on her wish list
Sheriff Salazar confirmed human trafficking is among investigators' theories, although a person close to the search told the Daily Mail that Cami did not seem to have the kind of social media presence that usually lures traffickers.
Sheriff's investigators are working with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, monitoring border crossings and flights out of San Antonio. They have determined that Cami, a US citizen, was not swept up and detained by ICE agents.
Meanwhile, the sheriff's office has dispatched drone operators, search dogs and a group of cadets to continue combing the landscape near Cami's neighborhood.
'There are a lot of people pounding the ground for her,' said Abel Orta, a retired Marine who lives a block from the family and has been aiding the search since Christmas.
Orta's mother-in-law, beset by dementia, disappeared in the area in 2017. It took authorities six years to find her body.
'I'm just here to say that the response time for missing individuals needs to be taken much more seriously,' he said.
Eric Herr and Lori Whitmire, both volunteers with a group called Search and Support San Antonio, told the Daily Mail that Cami doesn't meet the profile of a typical runaway or human trafficking victim.
Both cited her unspecified attempts at self-harm and recent insistence on being re-baptized as signs that she had been experiencing emotional distress.
'There are indications, let's just say, that she has been going through a lot,' Herr said in the parking lot of a nearby elementary school where the sheriff's department has set up a staging area in the search.
Meanwhile, a few blocks away at Rosario's place sits a gift bag under her Christmas tree. In it, an unopened bottle of perfume: Lancôme's La Vie Est Belle, French for 'Life is Beautiful.'
'She picked it out,' Rosario told us. 'My daughter is a humble girl. That's really all she wanted.'
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has issued a plea for anyone with dashcam or home surveillance footage that may be of Cami Olmos to call 210-335-6000 or email BCSOTips@bexar.org.