Missing Vegas woman’s family believes she’s alive, continues search

Susana Villalvazo’s family remains hopeful that she is still alive, 10 days after she went missing under suspicious circumstances from her Las Vegas home.

News that Red Rock Search and Rescue team members Saturday had found the body of a woman while looking for Villalvazo, 47, in the desert between Las Vegas and Lake Mead proved a false alarm for her loved ones.

The body was found near State Route 147 and Pabco Road shortly before 9 a.m., Metro spokesman Larry Hadfield said. Police have said little about the body, which has not yet been identified, but it does not match Villalvazo’s physical characteristics, family members and Red Rock Search and Rescue officials said.

Villalvazo and her stepfather, Samuel Teran, 75, went missing from the family’s home near Sahara Avenue and Valley View Boulevard on Nov. 5. The two did not like each other, family members said.

On the morning of Nov. 7, Burger King employees in the 2000 block of Las Vegas Boulevard North recognized Teran in a white SUV that had been featured in a police news release and called authorities.

North Las Vegas police stopped the SUV as it was leaving the restaurant’s drive-through. Teran pulled out a gun and shot himself once in the head, North Las Vegas police said. He died at University Medical Center without telling anyone about Villalvazo’s whereabouts.

“The coward killed himself and took his secret to hell,” said Juan Carlos Calderon, who had traveled from Mexico to help search for his sister-in-law.

The family hold out hope that she is still alive, perhaps wounded. They theorize that she could even be held captive by associates of Teran.

Family members said they think Teran might have planned to get rid of Villalvazo and might have rented a place where she’s now being held. They said he was seen in Pahrump a month before Villalvazo’s disappearance.

“Right now we’re looking for Susana,” Calderon said. “We’re looking for her alive because there is no body. Because she’s not dead.”

Villalvazo is a survivor, and they want to believe that she also survived whatever Teran might have done to her, Calderon said. In the past she survived a fall that left her with 10 broken bones, heart and brain surgery that hospitalized her six months, Hepatitis and breast cancer, he said.

She also gave birth while suffering from an illness, Calderon said.

“When she woke up she had a daughter,” he said.

Obdulia Jimenez, Villalvazo’s mother, said she knew something was wrong when she received a call on Nov. 5 from a neighbor saying that Villalvazo did not show up for their scheduled morning walk. Jimenez left her job at the Stratosphere early and went to look for her daughter.

“When she planned on doing something, she would do it,” Jimenez said Friday.

She said she would have known if Villalvazo had left voluntarily because they communicated extensively.

“We had a relationship like that,” she said, intertwining the fingers of both hands. “We were very close.”

When Jimenez arrived home Wednesday, Villalvazo and Teran were gone. The dining room furniture was moved around, but nothing else appeared suspicious until she found Villalvazo’s purse in her room and her shoes at the front door.

Jimenez said that as police were preparing a missing person’s report, a niece spotted blood on a mop, leading the family to believe Teran had tried to clean up a crime scene. The case was then assigned to Las Vegas police homicide detectives.

Since then, family, friends and the Red Rock Search and Rescue and Recovery team have been conducting daily searches in places where Teran liked to go. The search team’s Facebook page said members have in particular been looking for a large suitcase.

The family returned home Friday evening after scouring the area around Mesquite. Previous searches have been conducted in the Pahrump and St. George, Utah, areas.

Searchers contact any nearby residents and show them pictures of Villalvazo and Teran, Calderon said. They urge anyone with information to contact police.

“I’m living a 10-day agony,” Jimenez said. “Someone must have seen something. A person can’t just disappear like that.”

“Up until this point, I just want us to find my daughter,” Jimenez said. “If she’s alive, then thank God; If she’s dead, then thank God that we found her.”

Anyone with information about the case is urged to call Metro’s homicide division at 702-828-3521. To remain anonymous, they can call Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555 or go online to crimestoppersofnv.com.

Contact Ricardo Torres at rtorres@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0381. Find him on Twitter: @rickytwrites