STILL LOOKING FOR PEARL 6 YEARS LATER
Jesse Bethel High School student was kidnapped in 2016
Everywhere she goes, Rose Pinson sees glimpses. Whether in a crowd or not, she'll stop and hope that this time it's really her younger sister, Pearl.
Pearl Pinson was a 15-yearold Jesse Bethel High School student in 2016 when she was kidnapped off a pedestrian walkway over Interstate 780 on her way to school by an armed man who dragged her to a waiting car.
She hasn't been seen since. The kidnapper, later identified as Fernando Castro, 19, had no known connection to Pinson. Castro died in a shootout with police in Southern California the next day, leaving plenty of unanswered questions but no sign of Pinson.
On Wednesday afternoon, family and friends gathered at the same pedestrian walkway over Interstate 780, many of them carrying signs urging Pearl to come home, while others just showed support and love. After a prayer, the group marched on the walkway over 780 and then to Benicia Road. Solano County District Attorney candidate Sharon Henry, along with Vallejo City Councilmember Cristina Arriola, were also on hand to show their support for a family constantly hit with tragedy.
“Six years later it's harder,” Rose Pinson said. “Six years and I still can't talk to my sister and I can't call her. I have to live life without her. I live in a big city now so everywhere I look I say, `Is that Pearl?' I've seen a few people that looked dead on just like her. Every feature. But when I went up to them and talked to them — it wasn't them. They showed me their Social Security guard, they showed me their ID.
“But you know, it means a lot to me because they tell me, `Oh yeah I always get told I look like her.' That makes me happy because that means people are still thinking about her, trying to find her. And they think she's still out there.”
What does Pinson think about all the people coming to help spread awareness about Pearl?
“It means a lot. It's not only family and friends. It's our community coming together to help find her,” she said.
Pinson thinks about her younger sister just about every day, but May 25 is a little more meaningful and difficult. She misses a lot about Pearl, but what does she miss the most?
“Oh, fighting with her,” she said, with a laugh. “I miss fighting with her over everything, anything. We used to fist fight all the time. We both would win those fights.”
Rose knows a ton about fighting, especially battles with adversity. Although she wore a Tshirt that read “I GOT THIS” on Wednesday, one wonders how much one human being can take.
About two years ago, only a
“I live in a big city now so everywhere I look I say, `Is that Pearl?'”
— Rose Pinson, sister of Pearl Pinson
month after she and her fiancé, Gabe Medonza, 24, had a son, Andres, Mendoza was shot on the 1800 block of Broadway in Vallejo.
Mendoza was transported to a local hospital and then a local trauma center, according to a Vallejo Police Department report. Mendoza — whose aunt, Miranda Stuart, says he was kept on life-support for three days so he could be an organ donor — died from his injuries Nov. 8, 2020.
So how does Pinson do it? How does she remain optimistic in a life filled with hurt?
“It's all in God's hands,” she said. “My son is the main reason I keep going. He looks so much like his dad. And his eyes look a lot like my sister. He has the same little laugh as well.”
Although Pinson was frustrated a year ago with the lack of help from authorities, she says things have improved in the effort to find her sister.
She even got a tip Tuesday about the case, although she and Sgt. Sheriff Officer Sean Mattson aren't allowed to discuss the details to the press. Mattson, the officer assigned to the case six years ago, says he gets tips on the case from time to time.
“We get about two a year and they come from all over the state,” Mattson said. “We had one recently in Washington state where someone thought they had seen her, but it turned out to be someone different.”
Charles Olmstead, a detective with the Solano County Sherriff's Office, is assigned to the case. Both Mattson and Olmstead agree on one thing: “We can't rule it out. We have to keep up hope for the family,” Mattson said.
“The tip, yeah, it gave us some hope. You hope this tip is the one,” Pinson said. “They said, `Hopefully, this is the one,' but we're still in the process. We have been getting a lot of tips lately.
They told me they followed up on a few of them only to come up with a dead end, but they are currently following up on this one. If you have a tip, even from six years ago, call in. Anything could help.”
If anyone has a tip on the case, they are encouraged to call Olmstead and the sheriff's office at (707) 421-7090.
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