As the desperate search for a missing US teen enters its second week, police have revealed that her phone last pinged near a lake in northern California.
Investigators also said Kiely Rodni, 16, was wearing a top that said “Odd Future” – the name of a hip hop group – at a campground party the night she vanished, though they are unsure if she was wearing the top at the time she disappeared.
Kiely was last seen at the end-of-school party near Prosser Family Campground in Truckee, north of Lake Tahoe, in the early hours of August 6.
On Sunday, Placer County Sheriff’s Office said officers had found footage of the 16-year-old at the party wearing the pink and white Odd Future long-sleeved top, New York Post reports.
But authorities revealed last week that Kiely had also borrowed another hoodie at the party, with the Lana Del Ray lyrics, “You don’t want to be forgotten, you just want to disappear,” on it.
Meanwhile, Nevada County Sheriff’s Office, which is assisting in the search, said the teen’s phone last pinged at about 12.30am on August 6 near Prosser Lake – a man-made reservoir that surrounds the campground, about 320km northeast of San Francisco.
“The ping for the data points was near the water. It’s hard to tell an exact pinpoint,” Captain Sam Brown said at a press conference on Saturday.
“Just because it was last pinged there, that doesn’t mean that’s where the phone stopped pinging. There’s lots of reasons why those notifications or data points could be lost.”
Kiely’s mother, Lindsey Rodni-Nieman, revealed last week that her daughter sent her a text late on August 5 saying she was leaving the party in 45 minutes and was coming “straight home”.
Search crews have been scouring the lake for days as part of the massive search effort.
Captain Brown said the deepest part of the lake is about 17m and visibility is low, adding that search crews are almost going “into the water blind”.
“Once you start manoeuvring the ground, it’s like going through mud. These are tough operations,” he said.
Kiely was last seen at the campground between 12.30am and 1am, according to authorities.
They are treating her disappearance as a potential abduction because the car she was driving – a silver 2013 Honda CRV – hasn’t been found.
Her phone has also been out of service since the party.
Police have so far received more than 1200 tips in the case, including one lead that turned into a dead end over the weekend.
Crews spent Saturday digging at a “burial site” based on one tip, but only ended up discovering the remains of a dog.
“It was located by a search-and-rescue ground team,” Placer County Sheriff’s Office public information officer Angela Musallam said of the site.
“Kiely’s family was notified of the potential development. The FBI responded to secure the scene yesterday and was accompanied by the Placer and Nevada county sheriff’s offices. The FBI agents investigated the site through early this morning and recovered the remains of a dog.”
This article originally appeared on New York Post and was reproduced with permission