Jolissa Fuentes.Photo: Norma Nunez
More than three weeks have passed since the family of 22-year-oldJolissa Fuenteslast heard from her, and now police say they are treating her disappearance as a “criminal matter.”
Jolissa was last captured on surveillance video at a gas station in Selma, Calif., during the early morning hours of Aug. 7, after getting into a disagreement with a friend at a party,PEOPLE previously reported.
Now, 23 days later and with no reported signs of Jolissa in her hometown or on social media, the Selma Police Department confirms her vanishing is considered nefarious.
“Ms. Fuentes has been gone for a long time … And this is not normal behavior for Ms. Fuentes,” Police Chief Rudy Alcaraz said, perNBC News. “So, we are treating this as a criminal matter.”
Speaking with PEOPLE, Jolissa’s mom Norma Nuñez confirms the YouTube volunteer dive team Adventures With Purpose was unable to locate her daughter in the Pine Flat Dam or Avocado Lake in Piedra, Calif., - where Jolissa’s cell phone was last pinged - during a search of the water, last week.
“We can’t find her. There’s no car. There’s nothing,” Nuñez explains. “We think somebody took her.”
Jolissa Fuentes.Selma Police Department/Facebook
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The grieving mom says she has spent every day since Jolissa disappeared handing out missing person flyers at “every gas station, every rest stop, every truck stop.”
“After work, I head out and just drive out in the country. Same thing with all our family. We keep doing that every day, until she is found,” says Nuñez. “Me and my husband, we have a Ford Focus, and we’re acting like it’s a GMC truck. We’re going through really rough terrain. We’re on the ground [searching for Jolissa].”
In the meantime, Nuñez says aGoFundMehas been launched to help ease the financial burden of hiring a private investigator to also help with the search for Jolissa.
Jolissa was last seen driving her silver four-door 2011 Hyundai Accent with California license plate #8MPU766.
A $10,000 reward is being offered for information leading to her whereabouts.
source: people.com
