After 10 days of searching, about 200 volunteers scouring the mountainous region in and around Santa Clara County, Calif., have not found Stanford University student and Evanston Township High School graduate Christina “Minna” Sandmeyer.
A large-scale coordinated effort to find the 22-year-old senior began July 15, two days after she left on a bike trip to the Pacific coast. But despite hundreds of hours of searching, calling and putting up posters in the region, the search hasn’t yielded any new information.
Sandmeyer had been spending time with a female friend working on an organic teaching farm in Los Altos Hills. On the morning of July 13, she left a note saying that she would ride out to the coast and return no later than the following day. According to another friend, Stanford senior Laura McVittie, Sandmeyer didn’t bring camping gear. “(She might have had) enough to sleep over at a friend’s house if she made it to Santa Cruz,” McVittie said.
When she hadn’t returned or called by the evening of July 14, the girl with whom Sandmeyer had been staying started calling area friends. The next day, a mass e-mail was sent to an even wider group and the organizing effort to locate Sandmeyer began.
A missing persons report was filed with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department on July 15. The patrol division performed a physical search on July 17 and 18 with the aid of the California Highway Patrol and Coast Guard helicoper services.
Since then, the search has been conducted entirely by volunteers. Until new evidence is found or a new focal point develops, the sheriffs are helping to follow up leads and provide support rather than coordinating the search effort, said Sgt. Mark Eastus of the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Department. “We don’t have any other information to steer us in any direction – whether it’s a homicide, foul play, whatever the case may be,” he said.
That search effort has commanded an enormous response from communities ranging from Stanford and the surrounding Bay area to Chicago’s North Shore. Using the team-maintained www.findminna.org Web site as both a recruiting tool and means of disseminating information, organizers have brought family, friends and complete strangers together in tremendous numbers.
Participants attribute the outpouring of support to Sandmeyer’s strong presence in her community. A civil engineering major involved with environmental activism, Sandmeyer is slated to serve as a residential assistant in the Chi Theta Chi Co-Op house this upcoming year. In 1999, Sandmeyer served as a leader in a Bike-Aid trip across the United States.
“She’s an inspiration for so many people,” McVittie said. “(The magnitude of the search) is a celebration of who she is.”
Dozens of search teams have poured through mountain trails and small towns across northern California. The search even uncovered the long-lost remains of an unrelated individual in San Mateo County.
“I’m impressed with (the volunteers),” Eastus remarked. “They’re very responsive on the Web site, very organized and I think they’re doing a great job.”
Sandmeyer’s parents have returned to the Chicago area after spending more than a week aiding the search process in California. They were not available for comment Wednesday night.
The experience of this search may influence some of Sandmeyer’s equally active friends in the future. “The tendency is really to have overconfidence,” McVittie said. “Biking alone in the Santa Cruz Mountains especially if you’re female – maybe it’s not a wise idea after all.”
But for now, participants are staying focused on their goal. “(Minna) means so much to such a wide variety of people,” McVittie said. “I know I’m not going to give up hope.”
