Naya Rivera is presumed dead as the search becomes a 'recovery mission'
The hunt for missing Naya Rivera has now been changed to a "search and recovery operation", after police said the Glee star is presumed dead.
The 33-year-old actress was reported missing after her four-year-old son was found alone on a boat on Wednesday (8 July) during a trip to a lake in California. The pair rented a boat at Lake Piru, where they both got out and swam, but four-year-old Josey was later found alone inside the vessel. It's reported that Rivera's son was wearing a life jacket but the actress was not, as a life jacket was later found on the boat.
Despite a 100-strong search, no body has yet been recovered, and a spokesperson for the Ventura County Sheriff said there are fears Rivera may never be found. "If the body is entangled on something beneath the water, it may never come back up," Sky News reports Sergeant Kevin Donoghue said.
"There's no way to really say. We're putting our best foot forward to try and locate her, we're using all the assets that are available to us including technology like sonar."
Local police have released details of the 911 call that raised the alarm to Rivera's disappearance. A couple also on the lake that afternoon discovered Josey - who they mistook for a girl - in the boat alone, and immediately called emergency services.
"The emergency is we found a little girl in a boat all by herself and her mom is nowhere to be found," the female caller can be heard saying.
Captain Eric Bushow, also from the Ventura County Sheriff's Department, explained that the search effort had to be paused on Wednesday when it became dark. The operation - which included dive teams, helicopters and drones - continued yesterday, but to no avail.
"Indications are that we believe she did go in the lake. At this point it's still a search and that's what we know up to this point," he said. "We're going on the belief that she did go in the water, and we've not been able to locate her. This may well be a case of drowning."
Rivera's latest Instagram post featured a lovely image of herself and son Josey, with the caption, "just the two of us."
A post shared by Naya Rivera (@nayarivera) on Jul 7, 2020 at 3:15pm PDT
Rivera is best known for her role as Santana Lopez on the TV series Glee. She shares son Josey with the actor Ryan Dorsey, with the couple divorcing in 2018.
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