The naked body of a missing woman was found in the Arizona desert after her confused 911 call was reportedly dispatched to the wrong state.
Amanda Nenigar, 26, was last seen on February 28 in Blyth, California. She was discovered dead on Friday around 7.30pm near the Arizona town of Cibola, according to AZ Family.
A search and rescue crew member saw the California woman’s body under a tree about a mile-and-a-half from where her vehicle was left. She was identified by a tattoo of a rose she had on her right hand.
‘We were hopeful that we could find her alive and that she would be OK,’ said La Paz County Sheriff William Ponce.
‘It’s very disheartening when it comes to something like this, and it’s saddening for the family.’
Nenigar’s vehicle was abandoned in the Arizona desert south of Cibola roughly a week after she vanished.
She made a 911 call asking for help after getting stuck in a ditch off a highway.
‘I’m like kind of in a valley. Yeah there’s just a lot of mountains,’ Nenigar said while giving coordinates that were almost her exact location, according to an AZ Family report on March 22.
‘But I climbed to like a high mountain and I’m wearing pink.’
Asked by the dispatcher if she was on Highway 78 and what the nearest cross streets were, Nenigar said she was not sure.
The 911 call was routed to dispatchers in California, not Arizona where her vehicle was recovered. She went missing near the border between the two states.
On Friday, the sheriff’s office stated on Facebook that Nenigar’s family had been notified and ‘issued a statement requesting privacy and thanked the public for their assistance in trying to locate Amanda’.
‘We ask that you please respect the family during this time and avoid spreading rumors and assumptions,’ wrote the sheriff’s office.
‘Please do not call 911 asking for updates on Amanda Nenigar. This is still an active investigation and a pending autopsy will determine the cause of death.’
Investigators said Nenigar may have taken off her clothes to try to stay cool while under the shade of a tree and may have died of exposure.
But her sister, Marissa Nenigar, said she is ‘really numb, upset and mad’ at how authorities handled her case.
‘Who knows what she went through, suffering for that many days out there alone. I just don’t understand why she was naked. That’s so crazy,’ she told AZ Family.
‘Whoever that dispatcher was, he failed my sister horribly, horribly.’
Nenigar’s body was found more than nine months after the body of a missing 18-year-old Nebraska boy was discovered in a bonfire pit in the desert just northeast of Apache Junction, Arizona.
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