FBI Joins Search for Missing Florida Student Miya Marcano

FBI is now helping local agencies search for missing 19-year-old Miya Marcano, Orange County Sheriff says, as worried family and friends plan to hold another vigil outside her home. apartment complex Friday evening.

Family and friends also handed out flyers Thursday in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., Where law enforcement was due to continue their search on Friday, CBS Miami reported.

“Not including what’s going on today and right now, our Emergency Response Team and others have conducted nearly 30 searches, since Miya went missing, which spans three different counties and includes around 175 people, ”Sheriff John Mina said at a press briefing Thursday. .

Information and advice is used to target specific areas in the research. Mina said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement provided a dog trained in locating electronic devices, especially cell phones. Mina said he would not go into details on the role the FBI is playing in the investigation, but said they are helping “in the way of technology.”

Marcano, a student at Valencia College, went missing on September 24 just before she was supposed to travel to Fort Lauderdale to visit her family, authorities said.

Investigators announced Monday that a person of interest in his disappearance, Armando Manuel Caballero, was found dead in a Seminole County apartment complex following an apparent suicide. Mina said Caballero has been a maintenance worker at Arden Villas since June and accessed Marcano’s apartment using a master key.

The sheriff said they believed Caballero was responsible, although “we don’t know all of the circumstances involved in what happened there.” He also mentioned that the sheriff’s office received a video that led to the issuance of a search warrant for Caballero’s apartment and car “within 24 hours after we responded to the scene” .

On Thursday morning, MEPs stepped up their search efforts at the Arden Villas Apartments complex. Residents said they received notice that officers would enter occupied garages and storage units as part of the investigation.

“Our civilian analysts are working on all kinds of digital and social media resources in their quest to locate Miya and our forensic detectives are dealing with all the evidence we have gathered in this case. So we have issued search warrants, subpoenas. to appear, tracking cell phone orders, ”he said.