In the more than three years since 26-year-oldElizabeth Elena Laguna-Salgadodisappeared while walking home from her English class in Provo, Utah, her family and friends have searched for her, never wanting to believe that she wasn’t alive.
“Our hopes were high — we refused to give up,” says her aunt, Miriam Salgado. “Everywhere we went, we were always looking, hoping that one day she would suddenly appear.”
On May 18, Laguna-Salgado was finally found, but not as her loved ones had long wanted.
“We don’t know how she ended up there, but we now have an active homicide investigation,” Lt. Erik Knutzen, who heads up the Utah County Sheriff’s Office investigations unit, tells PEOPLE.
“Somebody out there knows something,” Knutzen says, “and we now want the person who committed this heinous crime to be brought to justice.”
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“I really did have hope that she would be found alive,” Smart, who wasabducted from her Salt Lake City bedroom in 2002 at age 14and held captive for nine months, tells PEOPLE. (Her captor,Brian David Mitchell, is serving a life sentence in federal prison.)
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“When my dad told me that her body had been found, I felt absolutely sick to my stomach,” says Smart, 30. “I’m grateful to the man who found her remains and called the police, and I’m happy that her family now has an answer. But that doesn’t make it any less tragic or painful.”
Laguna-Salgado had been in the United States for only three weeks before she vanished. She came to Utah to be near relatives and study English after serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in her native Mexico, says her uncle Rosemberg Salgado, who lives in California but moved temporarily to Utah to help search for his niece.
“She was a wonderful girl with great faith, always willing to help her community,” Salgado tells PEOPLE. “She came here with a visa because she wanted to get an education and learn English then return to her parents in Mexico and get a job. I am so depressed and sad right now, knowing that now we’ll be planning her funeral.”
Because a homicide investigation is underway, a memorial service may not be held for several months, he says.
“The news that she has been murdered was very hard for her parents and for all of us,” Salgado says, “but we have faith in the investigators.”
Her family’s years-long desire that Laguna-Salgado would be found alive has now turned toward pursuing her killer.
“Whoever did this, we’re going to find him,” Salgado says. “He might as well turn himself in, because we’re going to find him and he’s going to pay. Nobody else should have to experience this evil.”
Anyone with information regarding Laguna-Salgado is urged to contact theUtah County Sheriff’s Officeat 801-851-4000.
source: people.com
