{"id":174634,"date":"2026-02-12T06:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T06:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/174634\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T06:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T06:04:13","slug":"remains-identified-by-california-department-of-justice-as-missing-chico-woman-dolores-sakamoto-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/174634\/","title":{"rendered":"Remains identified by California Department of Justice as missing Chico woman Dolores Sakamoto | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>REDDING, Calif. &#8211; On Wednesday, the Shasta County Sheriff&#8217;s Office confirmed that the human remains that were located by a vehicle in Shasta County belong to a missing Chico woman.<\/p>\n<p>The Shasta County Sheriff&#8217;s Office says that in March of 2025, a vehicle that was associated with a missing persons investigation from Butte County was discovered in a remote area of northeastern Shasta County.<\/p>\n<p>Human remains were located by Search and Rescue teams near where the vehicle and been found.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say that attempts to identify the human remains through the use of rapid DNA testing was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<p>In August 2025, the remains were sent by authorities to the California Department of Justice Laboratory for further analysis.<\/p>\n<p>The Shasta County Sheriff&#8217;s Office says that in December of 2025, the Shasta County Coroner&#8217;s Office was notified by the California Department of Justice that one set of the remains could be identified.<\/p>\n<p>The California Department of Justice was able to confirm that the one set of remains was positively identified as belonging to 85-year-old Dolores Sakamoto of Chico.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say that Sakamoto is one of the two missing women from Chico. No updates have been provided for Vivian Luna, Sakamoto&#8217;s daughter, who was also missing.<\/p>\n<p>The Shasta County Sheriff&#8217;s Office says that further testing is still in progress by the\u00a0Chico State Anthropology Department.<\/p>\n<p>FURTHER READING<\/p>\n<p>                    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsnow.com\/news\/authorities-searching-for-two-missing-at-risk-women-who-were-last-seen-in-chico\/article_34d60dc2-4940-11ef-be66-afc75af9cb53.html\" class=\"tnt-asset-link\" aria-label=\"Authorities searching for two missing at-risk women who were last seen in Chico\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>                &#13;<br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Authorities searching for two missing at-risk women who were last seen in Chico\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1357\" height=\"761\" data- data-\/><br \/>\n                <\/a><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/66a02b5bd1305.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"112\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"tnt-summary\">They both are believed to be in a black 1996 Lexus ES300 with a license plate number of 6KSP061, the CHP said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsnow.com\/news\/new-information-in-search-for-missing-grandmother-and-her-daughter\/article_1b5f36be-5662-11ef-8a04-53cb51aafec0.html\" class=\"tnt-asset-link\" aria-label=\"New information in search for missing grandmother and her daughter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>                &#13;<br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"New information in search for missing grandmother and her daughter\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1357\" height=\"761\" data- data-\/><br \/>\n                <\/a><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/66a02b5bd1305.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"112\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"tnt-summary\">Action News Now is continuing to learn more about two missing senior citizens from Chico.<\/p>\n<p>                    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsnow.com\/news\/vehicle-belonging-to-two-missing-chico-women-found-human-remains-located\/article_7129b13e-e25c-4ba5-9db8-f63ca26e0b75.html\" class=\"tnt-asset-link\" aria-label=\"Vehicle belonging to two missing Chico women found, human remains located\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>                &#13;<br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Vehicle belonging to two missing Chico women found, human remains located\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1357\" height=\"761\" data- data-\/><br \/>\n                <\/a><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/66a02b5bd1305.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"112\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"tnt-summary\">Authorities say that the vehicle belonging to 84-year-old Dolores Sakamoto and her daughter 64-year-old Vivian Luna was found in a remote area off Interstate 5 in March.<\/p>\n<p>                    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actionnewsnow.com\/news\/new-rapid-dna-tech-used-in-chico-mother-daughter-disappearance-case\/article_8782652e-2667-4b21-afc4-fbd4687b702e.html\" class=\"tnt-asset-link\" aria-label=\"New rapid DNA tech used in Chico mother-daughter disappearance case\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>                &#13;<br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"New rapid DNA tech used in Chico mother-daughter disappearance case\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1357\" height=\"761\" data- data-\/><br \/>\n                <\/a><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/66a02b5bd1305.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"112\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"tnt-summary\">Vivian Luna and Dolores Sakamoto disappeared from Chico in July 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"REDDING, Calif. &#8211; On Wednesday, the Shasta County Sheriff&#8217;s Office confirmed that the human remains that were located&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19786,7,9,8,972,100,10285,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-174634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-butte-county","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-local","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-shasta-county","15":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}