Lisamaria Martin del Campo, 38, told her family she loved them but needed a break. On Nov. 27, 2017, she climbed in her 2017 Ford Fiesta and drove from the Los Angeles home she shared with her mother.
Several weeks later, in Jan. 2018, the Fiesta turned up a remote area of Dun Glenn, in Pershing County, Nev.
Sergeant Nathan Carmichael notified the family and organized Search and Rescue. For three days they searched the area on foot and on ATVs and UTVs.
Humboldt General Hospital (HGH) lent the PCSO a helicopter for a two-day aerial search.
“There are a lot of outcroppings and shale areas,” said Sheriff Jerry Allen. “The helicopter got into those places we couldn’t.”
A handler brought a canine. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sent a ranger. Private individuals helped.
The searchers found no trace of the missing woman — only her footprints in the soft dirt of the canyon.
Lisamaria’s brother, Robert del Campo, summarized the likely sequence of events.
His sister suffers from bipolar disorder and recently stopped taking her medication, he said.
“She’s five foot nothing and weighs 130 pounds but she worried the meds were making her fat,” said del Campo. He added that Lisamaria searched for a spiritual understanding of life.
“My sister traveled these four-wheel-drive roads in her small Fiesta,” he said. “She passed through deeply rutted areas and headed uphill towards Dun Glen Peak until her car spun out. She left her keys on the passenger seat. She’s not a hiker but she headed up the mountainside on foot.”
The footprints led three miles up the rugged terrain.
“At the top she crawled under a wire fence,” said del Campo. “That’s where they found one of her two cell phones. The other was in the Fiesta.”
A storm came in a few days later and blanketed the upper parts of the mountain with snow. Night time temperatures plummeted to ten degrees.
The PCSO concluded the active part of their search.
“There’s only so much land she could have covered in that amount of time,” said Sheriff Allen. And we’ve thoroughly searched the area.”
The PCSO continues to follow leads as they become available.
They pieced together a portion of Lisamaria’s journey.
She left Eureka, Calif., on Jan. 7, 2018, after telling an acquaintance she planned to drive home to Los Angeles. But, for unknown reasons she turned back and headed east. A debit card transaction showed that she stopped in Applegate, Calif.
Next, she stayed at the Motel 6 in Winnemucca on Jan. 8 and Jan. 9, checking out on Jan. 10, 2018.
Five days later her Fiesta turned up on a steep, rocky incline.
“We’re unaware of what happened during that five day window,” said Sheriff Allen.
The family has hired a private investigator, said Robert del Campo in a recent Email. He added that his sister’s iPhone 8 remains locked.
“There is no new news,” he said. “There’s been no movement on her accounts and no contact with her closest friends.”
On March 7, 2018, Nina Martin del Campo turned 77. She missed her only daughter at the family get-together.
“My feelings are that Lisamaria either perished in a mine shaft or intentionally does not want to be found and is part of some religious cult,” said Robert del Campo.
