A tragic development has emerged in the search for a missing Texas teenager who disappeared under mysterious circumstances on Christmas Eve. Authorities have discovered a body believed to be connected to the case.

The 19-year-old, Camila Mendoza Olmos, was last captured on a neighbor’s surveillance camera as she left her San Antonio neighborhood shortly before 7 a.m. on Wednesday. Her sudden disappearance sparked a week-long search, with officials expressing concerns that she might be in ‘imminent danger.’

In an update on Tuesday, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office announced that a body had been located in a field “very close to Camila’s home,” as reported by WFAA News.

The discovery was made during a renewed effort by sheriff’s deputies and FBI agents to thoroughly search an area with dense brush, which had prompted them to revisit it.

Despite the find, Sheriff Javier Salazar indicated that the medical examiner has not yet confirmed the identity of the deceased, nor determined the cause and manner of death, according to the news outlet.

‘But we hope to expedite that process to get the community answers,’ Salazar said.

He added that he hopes the medical examiner will release answers regarding the identity within the next day or two. 

‘We developed some information that there may have been some suicidal ideations on Camila’s part,’ the sheriff said.

A body has been found in the frantic search for Texas teen, Camila Mendoza Olmos, 19, who mysteriously vanished from her home on Christmas Eve

‘Undiagnosed, as far as we can tell,’ he added. ‘It sounds like this was a young person going through a very tough time in her life, going through some emotional issues.’

The discovery comes one week after the college student vanished from her mother’s driveway on Christmas Eve morning, where she had been living while attending nearby Northwest Vista College with hopes of becoming an orthodontist.

Olmos’ childhood friend Camila Estrella said their last conversation was a day before her disappearance, when they planned to go dress shopping for her boyfriend’s family event. 

Estrella told the New York Post that Olmos’ parting words were, ‘Bye Cami, I love you.’ 

Her sudden disappearance immediately prompted urgent pleas from her family, with authorities recognizing the area she vanished from as a human-trafficking corridor. 

On the morning of her disappearance, KENS obtained surveillance footage showing Olmos near her car with the lights on, wearing only a hoodie and pajama shorts. 

Investigators said the footage shows Olmos searching inside the car for an unidentified item before the video abruptly ends. 

They said it is unclear what she was searching for. Police believe she took only her car keys and possibly her driver’s license when she left home. 

Authorities noted that her car was still parked at the residence, suggesting she left on foot. From that point, she was never seen again.   

Olmos’s family said she normally goes for morning walks but always takes her phone, insisting it was out of character for her to leave without telling them where she was going. 

Her mother, Rosario Olmos, told KENS 5 that they had been sleeping together that morning. She said Camila got up, and about an hour and a half later, she did too – but there were no signs of her daughter, except for her car. 

‘I called her cell phone, but the cell phone was there on the bed and it was turned off,’ her mother told the outlet.

‘I put it to charge and went out to look for her,’ she added. ‘I thought I would find her like other times – walking – and we would come home together.’ 

On Sunday, Sheriff Salazar told ABC News that authorities were ‘not ruling out that this case may take us outside the borders of the continental United States.’

While withholding some specifics of the case, Salazar said the evidence collected so far suggested the teenage girl was in ‘imminent danger.’ 

He also revealed that Olmos had recently experienced a romantic breakup, but said it was amicable and that everyone close to her was cooperating with the investigation. 

Salazar made it a personal mission to ensure she had not been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, noting it was a ‘concern’ that had crossed his mind, despite Olmos being a US citizen.   

Beyond that, investigators said all possibilities remained on the table, including the chance she was kidnapped or fell victim to human trafficking. 

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security immediately assisted with the desperate search, including monitoring border crossings and international travel. 

On Tuesday morning, searchers continued scouring local fields and ditches for the teen while her family clung to hope, even while acknowledging that the chances of finding her alive was growing slimmer each day. 

‘I’m going to tell you something,’ her mother, Rosario told the Daily Mail Monday morning. ‘Giving up is not an option.’ 

The night before she went missing, Olmos, who had completed her fall semester in mid-December, was at home cooking and unwinding with her mother.

The two were close, often sharing a bed despite each having their own room in their spacious two-story brick home. 

Olmos’s mother said she awoke early on Christmas Eve wearing baby blue pajama shorts, a black North Face hoodie, and white sneakers. The neighbor’s camera later captured her rummaging through her car in that same outfit. 

Then, as if in a flash, her image disappeared from the video footage, leaving no clue where she went. 

That changed on Monday, when Salazar released new evidence: dashboard camera footage that, while blurry, appeared to show someone matching her description walking alone northbound on Wildhorse Parkway, just a few blocks from her home.

Salazar stated that authorities were considering all possibilities, including suicide, and that she had been dealing with depression, ‘undercurrents of suicidal ideation,’ and self-harm in the months prior to her disappearance. 

Olmos and her boyfriend, Nathan Gonzales, broke up in the fall when he moved out of town for college. 

‘She had lost weight, her grades were down and she was feeling low from the break-up with the boyfriend,’ her father, Alfonso Mendoza, a trucker who lives a block from his ex-wife, told the Daily Mail.

Although Rosario acknowledged that school and grades had been stressing her daughter out, she disputed that she was facing serious mental health challenges. 

‘People talk. But they don’t know my daughter like I do,’ she said, noting that Cami’s recent breakup was mutual and respectful.

‘It ended on good terms, in a lovely way,’ she said, and ‘wasn’t something she was depressed about.’ Nathan had been actively helping in the search for his ex.