Woman missing for 2 months found dead in car wreckage at bottom of cliff

Law enforcement officers in California have found the body of a woman who was reported missing two months ago.

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The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office and the Selma Police Department said the body of Jolissa Fuentes was found in the wreckage of her car near Pine Flat Lake in Fresno, California.

Fuentes was last seen on Aug. 6 when she had left a family gathering to get something from her house, CNN reported. Her family reported her missing the next day.

Officials had searched for her since then, considering the case a criminal matter, CNN reported.

This week Selma Police Chief Rudy Alcaraz was in the mountains on his own, retracing areas that had been searched and found the accident scene, Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said in a news conference Tuesday, KGPE reported. Alcaraz said he noticed tire tracks in dry brush, CNN reported.

The sheriff’s office also shared the information on Facebook.

Alcaraz called the sheriff’s office, which sent a search and rescue team to the site of the car, which was about 400 feet from the roadway, KGPE reported.

The team had to rappel down a 250-foot cliff to a landing and then down a second cliff to get Fuentes’ body, CNN reported.

The vegetation below was so thick that crews had a hard time getting through the growth near the cliff where the car was found.

“Search and rescue was down 200 feet and we couldn’t even see them anymore, even with their flashlights,” Alcaraz said, according to KGPE.

Law enforcement officers believe the crash was an accident and that Fuentes fell asleep at the wheel, but the California Highway Patrol is investigating, CNN reported.

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