In a notable resolution to a distressing case of a missing 14-year-old girl from Patterson, CA, the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Office has successfully recovered the minor and arrested two suspects for her disappearance. The Stanislaus County Sheriff's Office provided details of the incident in a social media post, outlining the joint efforts of the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Special Victims Unit and the Stanislaus County Human Exploitation and Trafficking (HEAT) Task Force, who were notified about the missing minor on December 31, 2025.
Following up on the case through rigorous detective work, the authorities managed to locate and safely recover the young victim just a day later on January 1, 2026; during the course of the investigation, they identified and arrested two 19-year-olds from San Francisco, Bexy Arellanes and David Samaniego and the two of them now face charges related to human trafficking of a minor, both were booked into the Stanislaus County Public Safety Center, as reported by the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Office.
The recovery and these arrests signal a critical intervention in a case that carried the all-too-real threat of human trafficking, a scourge that preys on the most vulnerable among us. Acknowledging the importance of community collaboration in these efforts, the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Office encourages anyone with information related to the case to reach out to Detective Cooper at (209) 525-7114 or to submit an anonymous tip through Stanislaus Area Crime Stoppers at (866) 602-7463.
