Woman Vanishes Across the Street From Cal State

Disappearance follows string of campus attacks
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 12, 2015 12:13 AM CDT
Woman Vanishes Across Street From Cal State
Police released this image of a suspect in two Cal State attacks.   (San Bernardino Police)

Police on horseback and dirt bikes are searching remote areas for a woman whose disappearance followed a series of violent attacks at Cal State San Bernardino. Sahray Astina Barber, a 22-year-old who studies and works at the Art Institute of California-Inland Empire, lives across the street from the university and was last seen around 6am Monday. The university emailed students about her disappearance, saying that her roommates found her belongings, including her phone and laptop, scattered on the lawn outside her apartment building and called police after discovering that she hadn't turned up to work that day, the San Bernardino Sun reports. "We're covering every road, every trail, and every rabbit path," one of the searchers scouring the hills tells the Press-Enterprise.

Police say they haven't found firm evidence of foul play or established a connection between the disappearance and the wave of attacks at Cal State in the last few weeks, which include a carjacking, an attempted rape, and—the day before Barber vanished—an incident in which a female student fought off a man who tried to kidnap her, NBC reports. Police have released a composite sketch of a suspect in two of the Cal State attacks, who is described as a Hispanic male around 20 years old, according to the Press-Enterprise. The university says it has more than doubled its police presence, and Barber's father says, "We just want her back," the Sun reports. (An attempted kidnapping in Washington state was foiled by the snatched toddler's 8-year-old sister.)

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