Sister of missing woman criticizes search
Paola Miranda Rosa has not been seen in nearly 2 weeks: ‘We need answers ... now’
The sister of Paola Miranda Rosa, who’s been missing since Dec. 18, criticized the “lack of attention” by the Osceola County Sheriff ’s Office in its search after the family found her car at Wekiwa Springs State Park.
It’s been 13 days since Miranda Rosa was last seen having lunch with her family in Orlando before returning home and not answering her phone again, though authorities said foul play is not suspected.
Osceola sheriff deputies worked with the Orange County Sheriff ’s Office in the search, which authorities said involved more than 150 officers, who searched the state park using planes, drones, boats, SCUBA divers, bloodhounds and volunteers on horseback.
But on a 57-minute live-streamed interview on Instagram with Jodi Covington of the Miya Marcano Foundation, Andrea Miranda and her husband Enrymir Ortiz said there were missteps in the investigation, including that the search didn’t start until after the family found the car.
The Sheriff ’s Office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Miranda and Ortiz said they found Miranda Rosa’s car by following its toll data with a group of friends on Dec. 21, two days after she was reported missing, after being “aggravated” with what they felt was a slow response by detectives.
“[We found the car] on the first day that we assembled a group of people, within two hours,” the couple said. Miranda added detectives would have found the car sooner “if the detective had taken some time to hear what I had to say and search where I wanted them to search.”
The Osceola County Sheriff ’s Office first publicly posted about Miranda Rosa’s disappearance the same day the couple said volunteers found the car, but didn’t acknowledge the discovery until after Christmas despite multiple posts calling on the public to help with the search.
The couple also claimed the car wasn’t processed because the disappearance isn’t being treated as a criminal investigation, despite the insistence of family and friends that Miranda Rosa would not choose to suddenly lose contact with them. Family members were also visiting from Puerto Rico who planned on staying in Miranda Rosa’s home.
“She had cleaned her house, cleaned the guest bedroom, set everything up because they were going to stay with her ... so there’s just so many things she had been looking forward to here in Orlando,” Miranda said.
Ortiz continued, “Through the window of the car, we were able to see she had a to-do list with names and items of gifts she wanted to buy. She had the intention
of being here.”
Miranda said other information provided to investigators, like a witness who claimed to have seen Miranda Rosa at a gas station in Mt. Dora, went ignored for days until surveillance footage that could have shown her no longer exists.
“It was up to the family to get information, but how far can we get? We can’t get very far, we can only do so much,” she said. “We called, we asked, we did whatever we could . ... It’s really hard because it’s on the family to try to do these things but we’re limited on what we can actually accomplish.”
Miranda Rosa’s loved ones recently created a GoFundMe account to raise money to hire a private investigator. As of Thursday, the online fundraiser raised more than $11,000 of its $15,000 goal.
“We need answers, and we need them now,” Miranda said.
Anyone with information about Miranda Rosa’s disappearance can call the Osceola County Sheriff ’s Office at 407-348-2222.
The interview with the Miya Marcano Foundation comes after the nonprofit, named after the Valencia College student killed in September after authorities said she was taken from her apartment by a maintenance worker, announced it was helping with the search.
Covington, the interviewer who also serves as a board director for the foundation, called the couple’s story “an ongoing dropping of balls” over the course of the investigation. In a statement, the foundation said it had reached out to the Osceola and Orange sheriff’s offices to lend their support.
Marcano’s disappearance also sparked outrage in the community after the family and its supporters accused investigators of initially not taking the case seriously by looking more closely at Armando Caballero, the worker later said to have kidnapped and killed her.
The search spanned several counties as authorities tracked Caballero’s cellphone data, but Marcano’s remains were found bound with duct tape in a wooded area at Tymber Skan, a dilapidated apartment complex in Orlando.
Sheriff John Mina told reporters at the time that Caballero used to live in that community, and that data showed he was in the area for about 20 minutes just hours after Marcano was taken from her apartment.
Caballero later killed himself at an apartment complex in Seminole County.