A morning full of rain didn’t keep a sizable crowd from marching Saturday through downtown Morgan Hill to show support and raise awareness for missing 15-year-old Sierra LaMar.
The march was organized by Dori Prado of Morgan Hill, who has volunteered with KlaasKids Foundation all week in their efforts to enlist residents to help search for Sierra.
Gathering at the Community Center, Prado and other organizers distributed pink helium balloons and stacks of flyers depicting Sierra’s picture for the marchers to hand out along the route.
Prado invited the marchers to write messages to Sierra or her family on the balloons before they released them into the air.
“We want people to know we are a strong community and we will do whatever it takes to bring Sierra home,” Prado said.
Gary Palacios, pastor of Cathedral of Faith Morgan Hill, led the group in a prayer before they let go of the balloons.
After releasing the balloons, the crowd proceeded north on Monterey Road, carrying signs urging Sierra’s safe return and proclaiming solidarity in the effort to find her. One of the marchers, Annette Nevarez, 47, whose 14-year-old daughter Tara Romero was killed in a drive-by shooting last year, helped tie pink ribbons around the marchers’ arms.
The march made a U-turn at Main Avenue and returned south to the Community Center on Monterey Road.
Sierra has been missing since March 16, when she did not make it to her usual school bus on the way to school that morning. Police think she was the victim of a kidnapping or abduction, and that someone who either lives in, or is familiar with the area, is responsible for her disappearance.
On March 17, investigators found Sierra’s cell phone about three-quarters of a mile from her home, near the intersection of Palm and Dougherty avenues. The following day, they found her purse containing pants, a T-shirt and undergarments off the side of Santa Teresa Boulevard, another mile north of Sierra’s neighborhood.
Kathy Barraza attended Saturday’s march with her 10-year-old daughter Chloe and fellow Morgan Hill resident Tracy Flores.
Barraza has lived in Morgan Hill about eight years, and used to live near the neighborhood where Sierra lives, near the intersection of Palm and Dougherty avenues, she said.
“You never hear about things like that happening in our community,” Barraza said.
Flores added she attended the march to help find Sierra and to help “bring attention to the fact that someone from our community is missing.”
Nevarez said she is “not surprised” at the community outpouring of support Sierra and her family have received since the teen was reported missing, because she received similar support when Romero was shot to death at Cosmo and Del Monte avenues Nov. 4, 2011.
“Tara is guiding her,” Nevarez said. “Our community is awesome. We’re family.”
Romero’s cousin, Vanessa Woo, 22 of Morgan Hill, also marched Saturday.
“When everything happened with Tara we had so much support, and we’re here to give back,” Woo said. “Hopefully, Sierra comes home safely.”
Tara Garcia and her boyfriend Jesus Gomez attended the march from Mountain View. They have followed Sierra’s case closely on the news for two weeks, and wanted to let her family know that they’re hoping for her return.
“I have a 15-year-old daughter,” Garcia said. “Just the thought of what the family is going through – I would be devastated if something like that happened to my daughter.”
At KlaasKids’ temporary Sierra LaMar search center at Burnett Elementary School, nearly 2,000 people showed up to help the search throughout the week, scouring roadsides, fields, hills and neighborhoods for any evidence of what happened to Sierra.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office has sent its search-and-rescue teams, aided by law enforcement agencies from surrounding areas, out to look for Sierra multiple times since she went missing.
The sheriff’s office dive team this week was deployed to reservoirs and percolation ponds in South County, and this weekend they plan to send off-road resources on ATVs to search along the Coyote Creek Trail that connects north Morgan Hill to south San Jose, according to Sgt. Jose Cardoza.
On Friday, a volunteer found an empty box with the words “stainless steel handcuffs” and used condoms at the west end of Palm Avenue, Cardoza said. It is unknown if the items are related to Sierra’s disappearance and authorities are in the process of analyzing the items.
Also this weekend, sheriff’s detectives plan to further their “canvass searches” and expand them outward from previous canvasses that focused on the vicinity of Palm and Dougherty avenues.
Investigators have investigated more than 720 tips they have received from residents via phone calls and email, Cardoza said.
Sierra LaMar is about 5-feet, 2-inches tall with a thin build and dark hair.
For more information on the Sierra LaMar Search Center, call (408) 201-6364.
Anyone with information on the case can contact Santa Clara County Communications at 299-2311, or send an e-mail to ti**@sh*****.org.
During normal business hours callers can call Sheriff’s Investigators at 808-4500 or the anonymous tip line at 808-4431. Information or tips can also be sent via the Sheriff’s Office website at sccgov.org/portal/site/sheriff. Information can also be submitted by text at 421-6760.
