Update - Human Remains Identified
February 13, 2026 – Salton City, CA – Imperial County Sheriff’s Office officials report that on Sunday, December 21st, 2025, at approximately 
4:22 P.M. (1622 hours) Deputies from the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office and specifically the Salton City Sub Station responded to the area of Portsmouth Avenue and Newhaven Court in the area of Vista Delmar, California in reference to a report of found human remains. Deputies arrived in the area and located a human leg that showed signs of decomposition.
Shortly after the deputies' arrival, the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office Coroner's Unit was notified and arrived on scene to take over the investigation as well as to document the scene. The leg was collected by the Coroner's Unit and later was sent to the county's forensic pathologist for examination. The Pathologist was tillable to provide a sex, age or race for the remains.
Over the next few weeks, the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office Coroner's Unit and Scientific Investigation's Unit worked with outside agencies to attempt to develop a DNA profile for the remains and searched several other neighboring agencies' local DNA databases for a potential match. These attempts were unsuccessful and yielded no results.
On the afternoon of Friday, February 6, 2026, our Scientific Investigations unit received a positive female match from DNA extracted from the remains and was able to identify the remains as a "Jane Doe", however no other information was obtained at that time.
With this information and looking into a missing female juvenile case, who was reported potentially being in the Salton City area, the mother of the missing juvenile was contacted and agreed to provide a DNA swab for comparison. The mother's DNA swab was compared to that of the found remains through a rapid DNA analysis comparison and a positive match was made, identifying the found remains as the missing female juvenile reported out of Riverside County, California.
This is an ongoing investigation, and the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office is working with the FBI to investigate and search for the still missing juvenile.
Anyone with additional information is requested to contact Investigator Moreno at the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office at telephone number (442) 265-2265.
Source: Imperial County Sheriff’s Office
