(NewsNation) — The family of missing 22-year-old Jolissa Fuentes is hopeful Adventures with Purpose, a search and rescue dive team, can reveal elusive answers in her disappearance.
Fuentes has been missing since Aug. 7.
The dive team normally works on cold cases, but this week, they’ve decided to help with active missing cases. Earlier this week, they made a rare decision to step in and help in the search for missing teen Kiely Rodni.
They found her after searching for 35 minutes and then promptly announced they’d be helping in the Fuentes case.
Adventures with Purpose announced they’d spend up to three days looking for the 22-year-old, who went missing in Selma, California.
Fuentes was last seen at an AM/PM convenience store at 4 a.m. Earlier in the night, she’d been to a family party. There are some reports she had an argument with a friend, but police wouldn’t respond to that report.
“There is nothing to this point that overtly leads us to believe that a criminal act occurred. However, Miss Fuentes has been gone for a long time and this is not normal behavior, so we are treating this as a criminal matter,” Selma Chief of Police Rudy Alcaraz said.
Store video shows Fuentes alone, buying a cigar, then leaving. She turned left out of the store in a 2011 gray Hyundai Accent with the license plate number 8MPU766. Relatives say her home is to the right.
She Facetimed her sister two times about an hour later, but her sister was sleeping and missed the calls.
She was captured on a camera doubling back and police said she is again seen alone.
“The video we’ve seen, she’s been by herself,” Alcaraz said.
Family and the Selma community have searched the area police say her cellphone last sent a ping. That’s about 40 minutes away, near Pine Flat and Avocado lakes. The phone has since stopped sending a signal.
“Trying to find anything of my daughter, her purse, her clothing, I hate to say it, or even my daughter herself,” said Joey Fuentes, Jolissa’s dad.
The Selma police and the Fresno sheriff departments are working together on the case, and Fuentes’ family is grateful for the help Adventures with Purpose brings.
“Don’t give up because I know my baby wouldn’t give up,” said Norma Nunez, Jolissa’s mom.
The community of Selma came together and donated whatever the Adventures with Purpose team could need: hotel rooms, food, drinks and more. They will spend a maximum of three days on the search, after which they will head to San Luis Obispo, to look for Annette Adams, a 75-year-old woman missing since April 2021.