GILROY
– Gilroy police are searching for two teen-agers who have been
missing for three weeks.
Their mother says they are with an 18-year-old man who has gang
connections.
GILROY – Gilroy police are searching for two teen-agers who have been missing for three weeks.
Their mother says they are with an 18-year-old man who has gang connections.
“He has them,” mother Marisol Lesiur said.
Sisters Michelle Aguilar, 14, and Sheyla Aguilar, 13, are the oldest of Lesiur’s six children. The family – mother, kids and the girls’ stepfather – lives on Las Animas Avenue.
Gilroy police detective Rosa Quiñonez confirmed Tuesday afternoon that the girls were still missing and that police are looking for an 18-year-old male with the last name of Ayala, who uses the first names Yoshio, Jose and Juan.
“We know that he was (Sheyla Aguilar’s) boyfriend,” Quiñonez said. “According to Morgan Hill PD, he does have gang connections. He is not known to our gang unit or computer records. He is known to (Morgan Hill police) as Yoshio Razo Ayala.”
Lesiur said she thinks Ayala took her daughters against their will, but Quiñonez disagrees.
“I think they went willingly,” the detective said. “There’s no indication that they were kidnapped like the mother says.”
Lesiur told The Dispatch the girls had never before run away overnight. They left once but returned “a few hours” later, she said.
According to Quiñonez, however, Lesiur told a police officer on April 17 that the girls had once run away for a few days.
The girls are students at South Valley Middle School but haven’t attended class since they failed to return home from school on April 14, according to Lesiur and Quiñonez. Three days later, Lesiur reported their disappearance to police. The police officer who took the report passed it on to Quiñonez some time later in April.
Quiñonez said she initially tried to track down Ayala but could not do so.
“He moved out of the place where he was living,” the detective said.
This past Friday, two-and-a-half weeks after Lesiur last saw her daughters, Quiñonez issued a flyer with photos of the girls and Ayala, asking people to call police if they see any of them. Also that day, Quiñonez sent the flyer to other law-enforcement agencies as a missing persons report.
Ayala may be driving a gray Honda or a blue minivan. According to Lesiur, someone saw him driving these vehicles in front of South Valley Middle School on the day Michelle and Sheyla went missing.
Lesiur added that Ayala tried to pick up another 13-year-old girl on April 26.
“That hasn’t been confirmed,” Quiñonez said.
Lesiur said being without her daughters for three weeks has been painful.
“It feels like a tunnel without any end,” she said.
