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In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.
Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder.
This podcast may not be appropriate for younger audiences. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some names have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney and this is Voices for Justice.
Today, I'm discussing the case of missing 4-year-old Lucian Munguia. On Saturday, September 10th, 2022, Lucian was with his family at a park when his younger sister needed a diaper change. Lucian's father Juan says he just turned his back for a minute to change the baby, and when he was done, Lucian was gone. We're Lucian's parents. I'm his mom and this is his dad.
We're just wanting Lucian to come home. Sandra Munguia says it started with a trip Saturday evening to Sarge Hubbard Park. Lucian and his six-year-old brother wanted to play. They run down the hill a lot. That's their favorite thing to do is run up and roll down. And their two-year-old daughter needed a diaper change. But dad didn't go far. He was in the car that was parked right in front of us.
of the toys where they were. And it was like, he's the fastest diaper changer in the world. You know, like...
And that's all it takes is a blink of an eye. Investigators say they believe Lucian left the playground alone, headed south and east. They don't suspect foul play, but the family says they don't think he's hiding. He doesn't even get the concept of hide-and-seek. He comes out before you find him. He won't even go hide. He'll follow my son to go play hide-and-seek, and then he gives away my son.
Lucian has autism, but he isn't nonverbal. His English is broken up. It's not full sentences, but he still talks. His name is Lucian. We call him Shushi. We call him Shushinado.
Little, little. Right now, family members need volunteers to help search for Lucian. You guys are welcome to come out, come and meet with us. Someone in our family will meet with you by the picnic tables. Up by the toys. Up by the toy area. Park in the gravel down there by the sheriffs or up here by the toys. You can also pick up flyers to put up around town. Prank Guys is actually helping us a lot on this. They're donating a lot of flyers every day. And if you see something...
say something immediately not two hours later drop just take the second to drop what you're doing and call 9-1-1 if you have him just drop him off where he's gonna be found and just let him go he wants to come home my my two-year-old daughter misses him my six-year-old misses him we miss him when this episode airs lucian will only have been missing for a few weeks
This is definitely one of the most urgent cases I've covered yet. So let's jump into it. This is the case of Lucian Munguia. Lucian's mother, Sandra, described him to the Yakima Herald Republic as independent, confident, capable, and smart. She also says he loves being outside, and he especially loves everything to do with the ocean.
On his third birthday, Lucian said his first complete sentence. He had just opened his birthday present from his grandfather, a package of sea creature toys, and Lucian said, "A beluga whale has echolocation." His family has joked about Lucian being a marine biologist by age 16. Lucian's family says he enjoys playing by himself, and he loves playing outside. Of course, his love for the water also translated to a love of swimming.
His mother says Lucian knows how to swim underwater and how to come up to breathe. He loves swimming so much that he basically throws a massive fit if they try to stop him from swimming before he's ready to be done. He apparently gets so upset that they just have to pick him up and walk away most of the time. Lucian is autistic. Two weeks before he went missing, he started a program for autistic children focusing on communication, social, and learning skills.
While his vocabulary is excellent, Lucian mostly speaks in fragments of sentences and is still learning how to speak in complete sentences consistently.
At this point, Lucian often asks questions to express his needs. For example, when he's hungry, he'll ask if you are hungry instead of saying I'm hungry. Again, he is very much still learning how to communicate. As Lucian loves being outside, his family routinely visits their local parks. On the evening of Saturday, September 10th, 2022, Juan and Sandra Munguia took their three children to play at Sarge Hubbard Park.
Juan says he parked in the upper parking lot of the park near the playground, while 4-year-old Lucian and his 6-year-old brother ran out to play. Juan grabbed his 2-year-old daughter from the back seat when he realized she needed a diaper change. So while Lucian and his older brother played, Juan changed his daughter's diaper in the car. He says by the time he was done and walked toward where his sons were playing around 7.15, Lucian was gone.
Juan and Sandra quickly searched the playground. When they didn't see Lucian anywhere, they called 911.
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Now, I have to imagine that investigators spoke to Lucian's 6-year-old brother, trying to get any idea of what happened or where Lucian may have gone. But that information hasn't been released to the public. Ultimately, no Amber Alert was issued for Lucian, as authorities say he just doesn't meet the criteria. The criteria being 1. The child has to be under 17 and known to have been abducted. 2. The child has to be in danger of serious bodily injury or death.
3. The activation needs to occur within four hours of the event, unless not reported to law enforcement within that time frame. 4. They need specific descriptive information to give to the public. 5. It has to be reported to and investigated by law enforcement. Authorities say it's that first criteria, the fact that we don't know if Lucian was abducted, that prevents him from getting the Amber Alert.
Again, we have another missing child who does not qualify for an AMBER Alert due to there being no direct evidence that the child was abducted. As we've seen in other cases, as an alternative to filing an AMBER Alert, the Yakima police issue a Missing Person Alert. This is a statewide alert that they say acts in a similar fashion to the AMBER Alert.
Lucian's case has gotten some media attention, though it is mostly from local outlets. And Lucian's information was sent out to users of the Ring app through a partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, so there is that. On September 11th, the day after Lucian went missing, a candlelight vigil is held for him at Martin Luther King Park. Over 100 members of the community gather to support his family.
The searches for Lucian, of course, continued. But the Yakima Police Department quickly hands over the search to the Yakima County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue Team. At this time, authorities are not accepting volunteers to help with the search for Lucian. Here is Police Chief Matt Murray's interview with Cap Caveview News on September 12th, day two of the official search for Lucian.
So we're almost two days in. We have resources that have come from all over the state. We're extremely lucky that we have so many highly trained and talented volunteers. Some folks who have spent enormous amounts of money on their own equipment are here. Today we had, I've never heard of such a thing, but we have underwater drones which can go into the lakes. And one of the nice things about that technology is it can work a pattern.
because it doesn't get tired and doesn't run out of air. But so far, no luck. We have no real news to report. We don't know where Lucian is. We continue to ask folks if they have any information to send those tips to us so that we can follow up on that.
I do want to say Emily that we have no indication of foul play. We've had detectives out here almost two days now. They have done a lot of searching on their own, not the kind of searching that the search and rescue does, but talking to people, witnesses, looking for video.
I don't want to get too deep into what we have seen or what we know, but really good strong indications are that he moved to the south and to the east. Unfortunately, that's where some big bodies of water are. We also have a fast-flowing river. There's not an indication that he went west, so I know a lot of folks are concerned about maybe he got picked up or went into Walmart.
All of those things are possible. I can't rule anything out. We won't rule anything out. So any leads that we get in any direction, we will follow. But we also have to go with what we know and so far what we know is that this is a child who ran from his parents, went south into the east, and there has just been an incredible search looking for him. One of the things I will mention is it's pretty impressive.
One of the reasons we asked folks not to appear originally to come out was that all of the searchers have GPS on them so you can see the track of exactly where they were and then the map overlays and it gives us a really good idea of what has been and what has not been searched. We've also of course been looking for articles of clothing, footprints, things like that. So up until now we really didn't want to have people that might be contaminating that also making it difficult for the dogs.
So as we move forward, we will certainly provide more information. We will continue to communicate with the public in any way we can. How big an area are you guys searching right now? So we've gone south almost a union gap and the search area to the north looks like it's going to be about Sela. It's enormous and there are a lot of
Heavy brush, there's not only lakes and rivers, but there's canals and ditches and mud. And I mean, there's a lot of area to search, but I can tell you from looking at the grid, they've done it several times. They've now done the same area several times.
Does that mean that we could have missed him? Of course. It's too big an area, there's too many places for a little four-year-old to be, to say for certain that we have or have not been able to find him. What I do know is, you can tell around me, these people are very determined and they work hard, they're highly trained, and they've been going at this since almost two days ago. - Are you guys to the point yet of accepting people to come in and volunteer or not yet? - We're not, but we will make that announcement when the time is good.
what we would have to do is decide that at that point this specialty training is not going to lend to finding him and then it's going to be more how many people can we get to look at every bush so we will make that plea at some point but not not right now how many personnel approximately we'll get that number for you but it's well over 100. it's it's a big big effort
And do you know who brought the underwater drone? It was a volunteer. I think he's with Pierce County, but I don't know for a fact. Do you know how many different agencies? I don't, but we will work on getting all that information. We're trying to get a list of what assets we've used and who all came to help. Even the federal government and the military has come. I can't say people haven't tried to help because they are helping.
How is the weather impacting what you've been able to do? Yeah, today's been rainy, a little cooler. Luckily, it's not really cold. We're not in deep fall or winter yet, but it does make it more difficult. It certainly affects scent, things like that. It's harder on the equipment. It can't all go out in the rain. But when we have a free minute like this, we'll use it. I will say, Emily, definitely.
These folks are going through a nightmare. They're having a situation that no one would ever want to face. So I would just ask the community to be kind,
including on social media. Don't push send if it's mean. There's just no point, right? We don't need to be doing that right now. I think we should be known for a community that supports one another and our goal and their goal is to find this child, right? Today is not the day to blame or to try to make people feel bad. What we're trying to do is come to a successful conclusion. I hope that's the kind of community we are. It's certainly the kind of police department we are. So I would ask folks to think about that.
I know you had mentioned that the father was looking and the father called in to report the kid missing. I was wondering, I had talked to the dad a little bit yesterday, not on camera, but about kind of what happened. But I was wondering, is there anything else you can release about what he said as far as, you know? I'm going to be careful what I say, but I will tell you that we have evidence that validates much of what he said to us. So I will say again, there is no indication at this point of foul play on anyone's part.
Could that change? Of course it could change. But everything we're seeing leads us to believe that this is a child with autism who ran. And a four-year-old child running from parents, I had six kids, I can tell you that happens. So I would really hope that we are sympathetic and understanding for these poor folks who are going through this terrible situation. The official search for Lucian only lasted four days before Yakima authorities allowed volunteers to help search the park.
Basically, the search efforts were turned over to Lucian's family at this point. They rely on members of the community to assist. According to news reports, it appears that Lucian's family basically stops their entire lives to search for him. They miss work, school, and a ton of other small obligations of life. They stay at nearby hotels, and some even sleep in their vehicles at the park between searches.
Although there has been a lot of scrutiny on these parents, they have made this park basically their command center, welcoming anyone and everyone to meet with them and help search the area. Yakima authorities are of course still involved, but it appears that they basically just sweep the shoreline surrounding the park each day, looking for any evidence that may have washed up.
But just as it seemed like the official search was coming to a halt and was basically in Lucian's family's hands, there was an announcement. Officials shut down Sarge Hubbard Park to the public, and they resumed their official search with the help of the FBI. This episode of Voices for Justice is sponsored by Ibotta. Are you planning your dream vacation but dreading the cost?
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Now, this announcement was literally just days before publishing this episode, so we don't know the results of the search. That's pretty much where Lucian's case is today. Even just a few weeks out, tips have dwindled down to about five a day at this point. So where is Lucian? As Chief Murray stated, the Yakima Police Department pulled surveillance video from the park and found that Lucian left the park alone and was headed southeast.
Let's talk about the park Lucian went missing from. Running north and south along Sarge Hubbard Park is Interstate 82, which runs through Washington and Oregon. There are a few businesses surrounding the park. Most notably, in my opinion, are the handful of hotels to the north and the Walmart store to the west.
As of recording this episode, the police haven't released any information about surveillance video from these businesses. And as we heard from Chief Murray, it doesn't appear that law enforcement believes he went any other direction than southeast. To the south and the east of the park is the Yakima River. There's just no going southeast from where Lucian was last seen without running into the Yakima River.
The river is a tributary of the Columbia River, and is the longest river in the entire state of Washington, over 200 miles long. It's a scary thought, and it makes sense why investigators focus on searching the water. In my research of the park, I found the Yakima Greenway Path. This is a 20-mile paved pathway system for walking and biking.
If you follow this trail to the southeast of the park, it follows along the Yakima River, and then for about a third of a mile, both sides of the trail are surrounded by water, with the Yakima River to the east and Buchanan Lake to the west. Then the trail connects to the next park, Sherman Park, just under a mile from Sarge Hubbard Park. We don't know exactly where police last saw Lucian in the park.
But I don't think it's impossible that Lucian wandered down this path, maybe fascinated by the water on either side until he reaches the next park. Or that perhaps someone took him down this path. From Sherman Park, unfortunately, he could have gone anywhere. There are many businesses and homes around, as well as Interstate 82. Of course, I think we need to address the huge elephant in the room. It's entirely possible Lucian fell in the water.
But I don't think that's the only possibility. We can only hope that Lucian's love of the water also meant he had a lot of experience with it and knew his limits. Again, according to his mother Sandra, Lucian does know how to swim, how to swim underwater, and get himself back out of the water to breathe.
Now, the family does not believe Lucian may have wandered away to hide somewhere. His mother Sandra has stated quite clearly that Lucian didn't even understand the concept of hide-and-seek, and his family is not ruling out the possibility that Lucian may have been abducted. And honestly, I don't think we should either until we get more information. Authorities have not given specifics on all the cameras in the park or along the Greenway Path, the path that connects several of these parks together.
We just know that he walked out of frame heading southeast. That's really it. As of recording this episode, the Yakima police say they don't have any evidence of foul play in Lucian's case. But they also aren't ready to rule anything out. They and Lucian's family are asking the media and the public to help share his information. His family created the Facebook group Finding Lucian, which already has over four and a half thousand members.
In the group, Lucian's family gives regular updates, and members post about their efforts to help spread the word.
Juan's employer, the restaurant Tailgaters, held a silent auction fundraiser to assist in Lucian's case. Rich Goodall, the owner of Tailgaters, told the Yak Tri News, "...the father is a wonderful human being. He's not only a loving dad, but a loving husband. He does nothing but talk good about his family. So yeah, I would say that support them any way you possibly can. They're really good people." End quote.
Over 30 businesses in the area donated items for the silent auction, and they raised just under $9,000 for the cause. Although there is quite a bit of hate being thrown at these parents, as there really always is in cases of a child going missing, the community is coming together for them and for Lucian, and I really hope our little community here can do the same thing.
No matter what you think about these parents or the circumstances, a child is missing. Lucian is missing. That brings me right to our call to action. This case is so new. Please share Lucian's picture and his story. Authorities have also asked anyone in the area of Sarge Hubbard Park on Saturday, September 10th, 2022, to review any video or photos they may have taken for any sign of Lucian.
As a reminder, Lucian Munguia went missing from Sarge Hubbard Park in Yakima, Washington on September 10th, 2022. He is Hispanic, 4 years old, 4 feet tall, and weighs 40 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a blue long-sleeved t-shirt with a shark on it, blue shorts, and black shoes. If you have any information about Lucian, call 911.
Or you can reach out to the Yakima Sheriff's Department at 509-574-2500. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.
Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice media original. If you love what we do here, please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show in your podcast player. It's an easy and free way to help us and help more people find these cases in need of justice. You can also support what we do here over on Patreon at patreon.com slash voices for justice.
And for even more content, check out my other podcast, Disappearances, only on Spotify. Welcome to the Secret After Show. I know this was a really short episode compared to most, but I feel like it's really important- not- it is important, you guys. We don't know what happened to Lucian. Like I said, he may have very well fallen into that water. But I wasn't going to avoid covering this story just because that's a possibility.
Especially because the police really aren't ruling anything out. With this case being so new, it's really hard to know what the police think. We can only go off of, you know, the few things that they are saying and their actions. Now, one of the things that gives me hope is that the police won't point to exact evidence that leads them to believe that he could be in the water. I mean, obviously, I think it's commonplace.
common sense to, you know, really think about why he could have landed in that water. But I just, you know, I wish the police would come out and say, listen, here's a map of the park. Here's all the cameras. Here's where we saw him at point A. Here's point B camera. And he never showed up here. Here's another camera to the north. And he never showed up here. There's
They're just saying that they have evidence to believe that he left the park alone and he went southeast. And they've also been pretty clear in that they don't believe that he went to the north or to the west. But they're not telling us why they believe that. And everything I'm seeing online with them asking to continue to push the story, with the family asking for people to continue to push the story online,
leads me to believe that they haven't fully ruled out the possibility that he could have been abducted or just wandered away and needs to be found. In short, Lucian's family has hope. That community has hope. So, I do too. And I'm never going to feel bad for that. I will never regret having that hope, even if I end up being wrong. But as always, thank you for tolerating me here in this secret aftershow moment. I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.