THE month-long search to find a missing mom and her 8-month-old daughter has come to a tragic end.
Whisper Owen and her baby, Sandra McCarty, were found dead in a canal inside the car the two were traveling in, according to the family.
A search had been underway for the two after they had suddenly disappeared on July 15.
The last time Owen, 36, and McCarty were seen was on a traffic camera in Atwater, California, in a 2006 silver Chevrolet Trailblazer.
They were supposed to be returning to their home near Sacramento, but never made it.
On Sunday, officials confirmed that after a search, Owen’s car was found sunken in a waterway.
Two bodies were found inside of the vehicle, which Owen’s brother had said was the mom and baby.
Police have not officially confirmed that the two inside the sunken car were Owen and her daughter, but said an adult and infant body were found.
Richard Owen, Whisper’s sibling, had searched tirelessly for the pair since their disappearance.
“Where’s my sister and niece please just make it make sense,” he wrote in a Facebook post on July 28.
“I’m out here looking sissy I won’t stop till I find you,” he said in another post, just hours before her car was found.
Crews and family were on the scene as they pulled her car out of the murky water this weekend.
“She has other children that have to find a way to move on without their mother and without their baby sister,” her brother Richard Owen conveyed to CBS News Sacramento at the location.
“We have a very big family and she was a big part of it.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how the car ended up in the waterway.
“The California Highway Patrol is also carrying out a concurrent investigation with the sheriff’s department to establish how Whisper’s vehicle landed in the water,” police reported.
Disappearance timeline
The two’s timeline of their day of their disappearance (July 15):
- The baby has a routine doctor’s appointment: 8:30 a.m.
- The two visit Whisper’s brother then head back to her mother’s house: 2:45 p.m.
- Whisper and Sandra leave Fresno after visiting family: 5 p.m.
- Traffic camera catches Whisper’s car on camera in Atwater: shortly after 8 p.m.
- Police later released more traffic footage showing her vehicle driving nearby just after 9 p.m.
After an extensive search by family, Whisper’s car was pulled out of a waterway near the road on Aug. 17 – over a month after the two went missing.
The family has made a GoFundMe to help with funeral costs after the devastating find.
“Unfortunately, I don’t know why this has happened to my loving sister and her beautiful daughter,” Richard wrote in the fundraiser description.
“But I know they have departed from this world and are moving on to a better place.”
Over $9,000 had been raised as of Monday morning, almost to their $13,000 goal.
“She was the one who instilled in me the importance of so many things throughout my childhood, and now in her passing, she continues to teach me not to forget those who help mold you into the man or woman you eventually become,” Richard shared on Facebook following the discovery.
“She reminds me never to say goodbye in a way that you’ll regret or take for granted what you have in a loved one.”
