Julio Cesar Laguna-Salgado, left, along with family members, lay flowers next to a cross, Friday, June 15, 2018, in Hobble Creek Canyon near Provo, Utah, where his sister Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado was found. The remains of the 26-year-old Mexican woman were discovered by a passer-by looking for a camping spot last month. She had been missing since April 16, 2015, when she was last seen walking home from her English language class. (Evan Cobb/The Daily Herald via AP)
About 20 family members and friends on Friday trekked to the remote thicket in Hobble Creek Canyon where Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado’s body was found, seeking peace and spiritual guidance. In the loose soil, they discovered more small bones — likely the young woman’s — that hadn’t been gathered by investigators.
The medical examiner will make the final call, but Utah County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Spencer Cannon said the remains appear to be Laguna-Salgado’s. When asked about that experience, Laguna-Salgado’s uncle Rosemberg Salgado declined to comment.
Cannon said that investigators thoroughly scoured the area for remains, but that he’s not surprised some of the smaller bones stayed hidden at the scene.
“People may choose to disagree with this, but I don’t believe it’s that we did a shoddy job of processing the evidence there up at the scene,” he said. “It’s just a matter of we didn’t find it all.”
As they searched for Laguna-Salgado, some family members were frustrated with how police have handled the case. On Wednesday, Salgado told FOX 13’s Taylor Hartman that authorities haven’t investigated a person the family thinks may have been involved in Laguna-Salgado’s disappearance.
Although a small trail now leads to the remote thicket where Laguna-Salgado was found, it likely wasn’t there before she was, Cannon said , and it will probably disappear once the investigation-related foot traffic subsides.
Friday was the second time Salgado has followed the path to the site. He and others visited to erect a small memorial of flowers and a wooden cross, and to pray to God, who they say has guided them so far, to help them again.
Julio Cesar Laguna-Salgado walks up to the site, Friday, June 15, 2018, in Hobble Creek Canyon near Provo, Utah, where his sister Elizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgado was found. The remains of the 26-year-old Mexica woman were discovered by a passer-by looking for a camping spot last month. She had been missing since April 16, 2015, when she was last seen walking home from her English language class. (Evan Cobb/The Daily Herald via AP)
Laguna-Salgado’s family says God led a man to find her body May 18, when a hunter stopped and wandered about 30 feet from the road and ended the three-year search for the woman, who disappeared in 2015, about three weeks after arriving in Provo from her native Mexico to learn English.
The family hopes divine influence finally brings the protracted case to a close.
Salgado told The Salt Lake Tribune after his visit that he was still struck by how isolated the site is, that there is nothing out there but trees, trees and more trees.
To get to the spot, one must drive up Hobble Creek Canyon in Springville, past a golf course, and take the fork on the right. Then, at the end of a paved road, drive about 4 more miles. It’s on the left, on the other side of an incline in a thicket of tall grass and scrub oak.
“The place, it looks exactly the same as everywhere. It happened to be that the Lord made him to go to that place,” Salgado said. “That’s how I feel. So that way he could let us know what happened to my niece and find who did this.”
Who else but God, Salgado concluded, could have led one person to her in the vast wilderness?
In almost a month since Laguna-Salgado’s remains were found, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office has chased leads from dozens of new tips. Authorities haven’t released a motive for her likely killing or why they believe she ended up in the canyon, although they are investigating her death as a homicide.
A few weeks ago, detectives from the Sheriff’s Office and Provo Police Department traveled to California (where some of Laguna-Salgado’s family lives) to investigate, Cannon said. He declined to comment on what — if any — evidence the trip garnered, but he said investigators haven’t found enough of it to name a suspect in the case.
“Making an arrest is not an imminent thing that’s going to be happening anytime soon, unless some information breaks right away,” Cannon said.
Although Salgado has been to the spot before, he said it doesn’t get easier. While finding her body brings closure, he said this is not the ending anyone wanted.
He wanted to find her alive.
“It’s really hard to go and to know that someone killed my niece,” he said. “And knowing that her body was there, it’s just hard to be able to even think about that.”
On Friday evening, after the family had left the site, Salgado reflected on who his niece was, on the person he’d never seen again in this world
He said the 26-year-old was faithful and responsible, that she loved to give and help people and teach them about God.
“She was like an angel,” Salgado said. “Not because she is my niece, but she was just like an angel to me and my family and a lot of people.
“We’re going to miss having her in this world, and it’s going to be very hard not to be able to see her again. We just want to find whoever did this soon,” he said.
Anyone with information on Laguna-Salgado’s death can contact Utah County Sheriff’s Office at 801-851-4010. Provo police can be reached at 801-852-6210.