Search for woman widens

San Bernardino police follow leads to remote areas. The 22-year-old disappeared Monday.

‘We’re searching a number of locations, all the remote areas. We don’t have any solid [ones]. We’re following up on every little lead that comes in.’

— Lt. Rich Lawhead, a San Bernardino Police Department spokesman

Tips called in to San Bernardino police about a missing San Bernardino woman who vanished near Cal State San Bernardino, the site of several recent attacks against women, have stretched out to remote homes and dusty ranches across the county, police said Thursday.

“We’re searching a number of locations, all the remote areas,” said Lt. Rich Lawhead. “We don’t have any solid [ones]. We’re following up on every little lead that comes in.

“We just don’t have anything right now,” Lawhead said.

Sahray Astina Barber, 22, has not been seen since 6 a.m. Monday when she left her apartment across the street from the campus in the 1500 block of West Northpark Boulevard to go to work at an art institute.

Police said her laptop and phone were found in bushes not far from a parking lot near her home. A bloodhound tracked her scent from the area around the bushes to the parking lot, where the trail went cold, Lawhead said.

There weren’t any signs of a struggle, and the phone and laptop were intact — as if they’d been set down, he said.

The case has taken on a higher profile than typical missing-persons cases because twice in the last two weeks women have been attacked at the university.

On Sunday, a man approached a woman from behind, put his hand over her mouth and said, “Come on, let’s go for a ride in my car,” before she fought him off.

Last week, a woman fought off an attempted sexual assault in the school library.

No arrest has been made in either case, but police have released a sketch of the suspect.

Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said in a video posted online Tuesday night that detectives were looking into any potential links to the incidents but so far hadn’t found any.

“Rest assured, we immediately looked to see if there was any potential connection in our investigation,” Burguan said. “However, at this point, we are not able to connect the on-campus incident” to Barber’s disappearance.

Investigators have searched Barber’s apartment for forensic evidence, Lawhead said.

Authorities don’t have a motive for her disappearance or any evidence she was taken against her will, he said.

JohnValenzuela The Sun POLICE INVESTIGATE the disappearance of Sahray Astina Barber from her apartment complex across the street from Cal State San Bernardino. She was last seen leaving for work early Monday morning. Her laptop and phone were found near the complex.

Irfan Khan Los Angeles Times A COUPLE LEAVES the Cal State San Bernardino library. The search for Barber, who lived nearby, has gained urgency because women on the campus have been attacked in the last two weeks.

POLICE HAVE received numerous tips about Barber.