A pair of bodies found in a car in San Antonio, Texas, are thought to be those of a missing pregnant teenager and her boyfriend, police said Tuesday night.
Savanah Soto, 18, was last seen in a Kia Optima around 2 p.m. Friday on the 6000 block of Grissom Road in Leon Valley, the city’s police department said in an earlier statement, adding that they believed Soto's disappearance posed "a credible threat to their own health and safety.”
On Tuesday night, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said two bodies were found dead in an Optima belonging to Soto's boyfriend. The bodies may have been in the car for three or four days, he said.
“There are two people in the car. ... They are deceased,” McManus said near the crime scene. “We believe that it is the missing woman and her boyfriend.”
The bodies will be officially identified by the medical examiner, the police chief said.
Detectives are treating the case as a possible murder, McManus said. He noted that the crime scene was "very perplexing" and that information could change.
Soto's disappearance had earlier triggered a CLEAR Alert. The CLEAR Alert was created in 2019 to help law enforcement find and rescue missing, kidnapped or abducted adults who are in immediate danger of injury or death, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. CLEAR stands for Coordinated Law Enforcement Adult Rescue.
The city of Leon Valley, which is about 12 miles northwest of San Antonio, had posted on its Facebook page that Soto was past her delivery date and that her family was contacted the San Antonio Police Department because they were concerned after she missed "an essential medical appointment."
The city added that the Leon Valley Police Department was investigating her disappearance and that detectives and officers were seeking additional witnesses and information.
NBC affiliate WOAI of San Antonio on Monday spoke to Soto's family, who said she hadn't been seen since the day before she was scheduled to be induced.
"I just need to know that she’s OK," said Soto's mother, Gloria Cordova.
Cordova pleaded with the public for information about her daughter's whereabouts. She also filed a police report with Leon Valley over the weekend, WOAI reported.
Cordova said that since she last spoke to her daughter, there’s been no contact with her.
"I just want her home. I’m worried about the baby — if she’s even had the baby," she told the station.
Cordova said she believes her daughter is in trouble.
"There’s no reason why she would just get up and go off and do that," she said.
In a Facebook post, Cordova wrote her daughter was with her boyfriend.
Cordova said Soto wouldn't disappear on her own accord in light of the death of her brother, Ethan Soto, 15, last year.
"She knows what I went through with Ethan, and I know she doesn’t want me to go through this again. Come home. I just want her to come home. I just want her to call me and [tell] me she’s OK," Cordova told WOAI.
"God, hear my prayers and bring my granddaughter and my great grandson back home," her grandmother Rachel Soto told the station. "That’s all we want."