(June 12) The worst is feared as two women from geographically disparate areas of the county have gone missing recently under suspicious or troubling circumstances. The personal effects of each turned up in a way that could suggest either one or both could have hastily fled or encountered someone who might have taken them hostage.
Twenty nine-year-old Krystie Stuart left her home in Lucerne Valley for a dentist appointment in Apple Valley on March 2. She never returned home and on March 8 her white Dodge Dakota was found near a burned-out structure in an unincorporated area in northern Apple Valley. Sheriff’s department investigators combed through the vehicle, seeking possible clues relating to her disappearance or whereabouts but had little success finding possible evidence or information about her whereabouts. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department declared her officially missing on March 11 and brought in one of its helicopters to carry out an aerial search of the area surrounding where her car was found.
Twenty two-year-old Sahray Astina Barber, who is a student/employee at the Art Institute in San Bernardino and lived in an apartment complex in the 1500 block of West Northpark Blvd. proximate to Cal State San Bernardino, was last seen sometime shortly after 6 a.m. on March 9 leaving for the institute.
Her disappearance came in the aftermath of several recent attacks/attempted rapes on women on the Cal State San Bernardino campus. Those included a March 4 attack on a woman in the stairwell at the John M. Pfau Library, which ended with the assailant fleeing, and another on March 8 at the library in which a man attempted but failed to abduct a woman. Barber was not a student at Cal State San Bernardino, but many of those who reside in her apartment complex are students. Several of her personal items, including her laptop and cell phone, were found abandoned in bushes at that apartment complex.
Cal State police released a computerized sketch of the suspect in the two Pfau Library attacks, showing a Hispanic man with black curly hair and no facial hair, roughly 19 to 21 years old. He is described as between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 8 inches tall, and weighing 135 to 145 pounds.
In the case of Stuart, it is believed that as a result of her disappearance she does not have access to prescription medications she needs. She is described as a thin white woman, 5 feet 9 inches tall and 107 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a camouflage hat, white shirt, black pants and white shoes.
Anyone with information about Stuart or her whereabouts is asked to call detective Bill Doemner at the Victor Valley Sheriff’s Station at 760-956-5001 or 760-552-6800.
In the case of Barber, as of press time an intense search for her has been underway for three days, ranging from the area around Cal State San Bernardino to Live Oak Canyon in Redlands, where a lead brought investigators. Bloodhounds were used to track her from her apartment door to the complex’s front gate, at which point the trail went cold, suggesting she had left in a vehicle. Anybody with information about Barber’s whereabouts is asked to call Detective Dan Han at 909-384-5623 or the detective’s bureau at 909-384-5615.