A San Antonio community is preparing to come together to remember 2-year-old Aryana Trevino Martinez as investigators work to piece together the final moments of her life.
Investigators are reviewing surveillance footage that shows Aryana walking alone from her home toward a nearby creek area. She was found hours after being reported missing Sunday night in a brushy area near the last place she was seen, but did not survive.
Neighbors said they spent Sunday night searching for Aryana after relatives told police she had wandered off. Teresa Stephens said she searched alongside her husband and her 10-year-old daughter, walking toward the Belle Ellen area.
“It’s very sad because it ended up in such a tragedy. That’s really what it is. And it hits home,” Stephens said.
Stephens said that when she arrived, she saw only two officers in the area. “And there was just the two cops there. And so I pulled up and I asked them if they searched all through here, and they said yeah, but it’s pretty thick up there,” she said.
Aryana was found unresponsive near a pond in the Belle Ellen area, about 500 yards into thick vegetation. A map of the area shows investigators focusing on a distance of about 500 yards from where Aryana was last seen near the 4700 block of Allegheny Drive to where she was found near the pond.
Investigators are looking for additional surveillance video to better determine her path. Police are also working to determine how Aryana ended up where she was found and to examine conditions in the overgrown vegetation in the area.
Stephens said they later learned a neighbor found the child. “He saw a big rock and he went to step up on it and was thinking, please don’t let me find her,” she said. “And he yelled out, he found her, he found her.”
Some residents raised concerns about the height of the vegetation and whether the area should have been blocked off. Adrian Gomez described the conditions: “The weeds are taller than me. I’m six foot. Those weeds are taller than me. I can’t see a little girl walking through those,” he said.
District 7 Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito’s office sent a statement offering condolences to Aryana’s family and said SAPD is keeping the office updated on the investigation. The office did not address questions about maintenance of the area.
The city of San Antonio maintains the drainage channel from Beverly Mae Drive to Newforest Drive. The most recent mowing was completed in June 2026, and the next scheduled mowing is September 2026. Public Works has not received any 311 requests regarding vegetation in the area in at least the last four months.
Citywide, Public Works provides vegetation management services on city channels four times per year.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services is investigating alongside law enforcement and assessing the safety of all children in the home.
A cause of death has not been released.