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The suspected bodies of a missing pregnant Texas teenager and her boyfriend were found in a car in San Antonio, authorities said this week.
Remains believed to belong to Savanah Nicole Soto, 18, who was reported missing last week, and her boyfriend, Matthew Guerra, were found in a Kia sedan, the San Antonio Police Department announced Tuesday. The couple had sustained gunshot wounds and the car belonged to Guerra, police said, CBS News reported.
What was discovered in the search for Savanah Soto?
“There are two people in the car… They are deceased,” San Antonio Chief of Police William McManus told reporters Tuesday. “We believe it is the missing woman and her boyfriend.”
The bodies haven’t yet been formally identified, pending a medical examiner’s post-mortem examination. McManus, however, said the corpses may have been in the car for three or four days. He also described the crime scene as “very perplexing.” San Antonio detectives are now probing the case as a possible murder.
Was Savanah Soto killed?
“Detectives right now are looking at this as a possible murder but we don’t know for sure,” McManus said at a press conference Tuesday. “Because of the complex crime scene, we can’t say for sure what we have.”
Officials didn’t disclose whether a firearm was found in the Kia. McManus added that family members were alerted that the car was in the location it was discovered in, and that they phoned it in to authorities. No other information was immediately released.
Soto vanished on December 22. She was last seen leaving the Valencia Lofts apartments in Leon Valley, roughly 12 miles northwest of San Antonio, around 2 p.m. that day. The teen was reported missing after she didn’t attend a scheduled medical appointment to induce her labor the following evening, San Antonio television station KENS reported.
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Soto’s disappearance triggered a statewide Coordinated Law Enforcement Adult Rescue (CLEAR) alert. The alert included images of the gray 2013 Kia Optima that the two bodies were found in.
Prior to the discovery of the bodies, authorities stated in a press release that Soto’s disappearance was a threat to her health and safety, noting she’d eclipsed her due date by more than a week.
Soto’s family, alarmed by the teenager’s disappearance, issued a series of frantic public pleas begging for her safe return ahead of Christmas.
“We love her,” said Soto’s grandmother, Rachel Soto, according to KENS. “We miss her. Whatever is going on, let her come home so we can have a Merry Christmas with her.”
She added that her granddaughter, who she described as a “beautiful girl” with a “beautiful heart,” was “thrilled and excited about being a mom.”
The grieving family also said that she’d been living with Guerra at the time of her death.
“I just want her home. I’m worried about the baby — if she’s even had the baby,” Soto’s mother, Gloria Cordova, told NBC affiliate WOAI before the bodies were found.
Police said that an unborn child was found to be killed in their investigation of the bodies found in the car, according to NBC News.
