Vanessa Bautista, 24, and Alexandra “Alexa” Navarro, 23, remain missing after going out with friends in Elkhart on Saturday night, according to WSBT. Their families told the station the women did not return home and have asked the public for information.
What is known about their last location
The women were traveling in a gray 2020 Jeep Grand Cherokee. WSBT reported that relatives checked the women’s phone locations after they could not reach them, and that the phones were last known to be near 6th Street in Niles, Michigan, between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. Sunday. The available reporting does not establish that the Jeep itself transmitted that location.
Search efforts and family concerns
Dozens of volunteers searched in Niles, while relatives and friends distributed missing-person flyers, WSBT reported. Family members told the station that the lack of contact was unusual for both women. Relatives also said Navarro has not checked in with her 3-year-old child, which they view as out of character.
How missing-person cases are tracked
Michigan State Police publishes its Michigan Missing Person Report monthly, with statewide totals and county-level breakdowns, according to Michigan State Police. For cases that cross state or local boundaries, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, serves as a national information clearinghouse and resource center for missing, unidentified and unclaimed person cases. NamUs also provides a tool for sharing and comparing case information across jurisdictions, according to NamUs.
What national missing-person figures mean
The National Institute of Justice’s NamUs program says up to 90,000 people may be reported missing in the United States at any given time, with more than 500,000 records reported annually; those figures are not a count of unresolved cases, according to NamUs.
NamUs cautions that its statistics cover only people reported to the system and do not represent all missing, unidentified or unclaimed people nationwide, according to the National Institute of Justice.
Bautista has two children, ages 2 and 3, and Navarro has a 3-year-old child, according to WSBT. Jeremy Ham, identified by the station as the father of Bautista’s children, asked anyone with information to contact police.
Public request for information
WSBT reported that a prayer gathering for the women was scheduled for Monday at 7 p.m. at Holy Cross Church in South Bend. Anyone who knows where Bautista or Navarro may be is asked to provide the information directly to police.
