Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Hunt for actress uses sonar
Divers also still searching for missing Rivera at Lake Piru
Teams used sonar and robotic devices in what could be a long search for “Glee” actress Naya Rivera, who authorities think drowned in a Southern California lake.
“We don’t know if she’s going to be found five minutes from now or five days from now,” Ventura County Sheriff ’s Capt. Eric Buschow said at a news conference Friday, two days after Rivera’s 4-year-old son was found asleep and alone on a boat his mother had rented a few hours earlier.
Search teams on Lake Piru are towing sonar devices across the surface that scan the bottom for shapes that might be a body, then employing small remote-controlled devices to explore the underwater spaces that show promise.
Two such shapes were found Friday, but neither led to Rivera, Buschow said.
Divers are still searching the murky waters, but fewer are being used than in the hours immediately after the 33-year-old was reported missing.
“We’re putting as many assets as we can out there,” Buschow said. “We appreciate everybody’s concern out there about locating her and providing some closure for her family.”
Surveillance video showed Rivera and her son parking and entering the boat dock Wednesday afternoon in the recreation area at the lake 55 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, authorities said. She had experience boating on the lake.
About three hours later, the man who rented them the pontoon boat found the boy alone on it wearing a life vest. The boy told investigators he and his mother had gone swimming, and he had gotten back on the boat but she hadn’t.
An adult life vest was found in the boat, with Rivera’s identification, and her car was still in the parking lot.
On Thursday, authorities said they thought she had accidentally drowned, and the search had shifted from an effort to rescue Rivera to an attempt to find her body.
Search teams were focusing on the north end of the lake, known as the Narrows, where the boy was found, and the east side, where wind patterns suggest the boat might have been earlier.
The boy, Rivera’s son with actor Ryan Dorsey, was safe and healthy and with family members, authorities said. The couple divorced in 2018.
Rivera played singing cheerleader Santana Lopez for six seasons on the Fox musical-comedy “Glee.”
If she is declared dead, she will become the third major cast member from the show to die in their 30s.
Cory Monteith, one of the show’s leads, died at 31 in 2013 from a toxic mix of alcohol and heroin.
And co-star Mark Salling killed himself in 2018 at age 35 after pleading guilty to child pornography charges.