{"id":177369,"date":"2026-02-14T02:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T02:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/177369\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T02:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T02:35:12","slug":"human-leg-found-in-california-desert-belongs-to-missing-teen-the-press-democrat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/177369\/","title":{"rendered":"Human leg found in California desert belongs to missing teen \u2013 The Press Democrat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A human leg found shortly before Christmas near the Salton Sea is that of a 17-year-old girl who went missing that month, the teen\u2019s mother said.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"Notice about T'Neya Tovar on the missing-persons website of California's attorney general. \" width=\"1200\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771036512_272_oag-tovar.png\" data-attachment-id=\"3602760\" \/>Notice about T\u2019Neya Tovar on the missing-persons website of California\u2019s attorney general.<\/p>\n<p>An announcement Thursday, Feb. 12, from the Imperial County Sheriff\u2019s Office reported the development about the body part but did not give the girl\u2019s name, identifying her only as a \u201cmissing juvenile female\u201d from Riverside County.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI\u2019s Los Angeles office attached the Imperial County statement to its social media post about <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FBILosAngeles\/status\/2021355954969755802\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">the disappearance of T\u2019Neya Tovar<\/a>, and the girl\u2019s mother confirmed the identity to Southern California news reporters.<\/p>\n<p>The mother said she last saw T\u2019Neya on Dec. 1 and reported her missing after she failed to return to Hemet from what was thought to be a trip to Palm Springs.<\/p>\n<p>On Dec. 21, Imperial County sheriff\u2019s deputies investigated a report of a leg found in the community of Salton City. The location was an area of vacant lots within a scattered residential development on the lake\u2019s west shore.<\/p>\n<p>DNA was matched to a sample from the missing girl\u2019s mother, the Feb. 12 announcement said.<\/p>\n<p>The sheriff\u2019s office did not say the girl is believed to be dead; it said it continues to \u201csearch for the still missing juvenile\u201d in conjunction with other agencies, including the FBI.<\/p>\n<p>A flyer circulated by T\u2019Neya\u2019s family said they believe she had been in the company of an adult man. They said he is a resident of Thermal, but the street address listed on the flyer is in unincorporated Salton City about a half-mile from where the leg was found.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A human leg found shortly before Christmas near the Salton Sea is that of a 17-year-old girl who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,100],"class_list":{"0":"post-177369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177369","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=177369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}