Sacramento Mother and Baby Missing for 10 Days

A Desperate Search for a Mother and Her Baby

Family members and local authorities in central California are urgently searching for a mother and her 8-month-old daughter, who have been missing for nearly two weeks. Whisper Owen, 36, and her infant daughter, Sandra McCarty, were last seen on July 15 while traveling from Fresno to their home near Sacramento.

According to the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, the pair left Fresno around 5 p.m. that day. A traffic camera captured their vehicle, a silver 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer, shortly after 8 p.m. in Atwater, approximately 66 miles north of Fresno. Since then, neither has been seen, and no information has been found to explain their disappearance.

The Fresno Police Department, which is now leading the investigation alongside other Northern California law enforcement agencies, believes that Owen and Sandra are not in the Fresno area. There is currently no indication that foul play is involved in their disappearance.

A Routine Day That Turned Tragic

Owen and Sandra were supposed to return to Elk Grove, Sacramento County, where family members were expecting them. However, due to a miscommunication, her family didn’t realize she was missing for three days. According to her mother, Vickie Torres, Owen was in Fresno for a routine checkup for the baby. She visited her mother’s house, where she changed and fed the baby before an 8:30 a.m. appointment.

Afterward, she visited her brother’s house. Richard Owen told investigators that he last saw his sister around 2:45 p.m. on July 15. Then, Owen returned to her mother’s home, where they ate lunch and played with the baby before she left around 5 p.m., hoping to get home to Elk Grove before dark.

When she didn’t return home, her partner initially thought she had stayed behind to help her mother clean up a house she had just purchased. It wasn’t until Saturday—when the two would normally spend the weekend together—that her partner realized something was wrong. He then contacted the family, and it was then that they discovered she had been missing for three days.

A Family in Distress

Owen hasn’t had a working phone for the past year or so, making communication with her difficult at times. According to her brother, she typically spoke with her mother, sometimes using her partner’s phone, around twice a week.

Owen suffers from high blood pressure, which has been particularly bad since she gave birth. Her mother said she was hospitalized multiple times during her pregnancy. “My fear is that maybe there was a medical emergency behind the wheel, and maybe she had veered off the road,” her brother said.

He added, “I can’t help but to feel like something horrible has happened. The last time I talked to my sister, she was talking about how good life was. She was just happy. There was no reason for her to want to disappear or to leave.”

A Community in Search of Answers

Whisper Owen is described as an outspoken and outgoing “free spirit” who cherishes her children. She has a 17-year-old from a previous relationship, as well as an 8- and 3-year-old with her partner. All of her children are devastated, wanting to know if and when they will see their mother again.

“She’s just a very loving person,” said Torres. “Everybody loves Whisper.” She added that the family knows she didn’t leave on her own. “Everything is good in her life right now. There’s no reason for her to have taken off.”

Torres urged anyone with information about her daughter and granddaughter to contact police. “Somebody knows something and they need to come forward,” she said. She also expressed frustration with the limited efforts by law enforcement to locate the two.

Ongoing Efforts and Continued Hope

The Fresno Police Department stated that they are “making every effort to work with law enforcement agencies north of our jurisdiction to check areas that Whisper Owen is known to frequent.” They have also shared photos of Owen and McCarty with law enforcement agencies across the state.

Richard Owen has spent the past several days sleeping in his car as he and his wife search up and down the highway and comb back roads in the area where his sister was last seen. He described his sister as a loving, trusting person who would “roll her window down for a stranger, whether it’s 2 p.m. in the afternoon or 2 a.m. in the morning.”

“I’m not ruling out anything,” he said. “I’m trying to find her in any way possible.”