Missing girls with local ties found in Mexico

Two missing girls and their fugitive parents have been located in Mexico, according to the girls' aunt, Rhonda Phillips of Nevada City.

A San Diego man located 6-year-old Viana Carelli, her baby sister Faith and their fugitive parents, Richard Carelli and Michelle Pinkerton, in El Rosario on the Pacific coast of Baja California. That's about an hour south of the town where the family had been seen in March, according to Phillips and an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Carelli and Pinkerton never returned Viana to her grandparents in Santa Cruz after they picked her up for a court-approved, unsupervised visit in January, according to San Francisco police.

Police suspect Carelli and Pinkerton of killing their San Francisco roommate, police say.

Phillips had suspected the family may have been hiding in Nevada County.

But in late March, a woman vacationing in Baja spotted Viana Carelli, Phillips said.

James R. Spring, a reporter from San Diego, went to Baja California on Friday and passed out hundreds of fliers with the intention of locating the missing girls, the Sentinel article states.

Spring determined Pinkerton, who had performed in shows in South Lake Tahoe casinos, had been teaching dance classes for 10 pesos an hour in El Rosario, according to the article.

Mexican authorities took the couple into custody and plan to deport them today, at which time they will be re-arrested by U.S. officials at the border. Spring is traveling with the convoy and sending periodic updates to relatives in Soquel.

The Santa Cruz County District Attorney's Office will send an inspector to take custody of Viana, the article stated. Relatives expected to work this morning to get an emergency guardianship order for Faith, who has special medical needs, so she can return to Soquel with her big sister.



To contact Staff writer Robyn Moormeister, e-mail rmoormeister@theunion.com or call 477-4236.