Possible break in search for student missing since 1997
OAKLAND, Calif. -- A retired police sergeant says his cadaver dog detected remains at the Oakland house of an 18-year-old college student who disappeared in 1997.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports retired Mammoth Lakes, Calif., police sergeant Paul Dostie and his 11-year-old Labrador, Buster, were working for the missing woman's family when the dog smelled remains on the property.
Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson says officers and an evidence technician were at the scene Thursday, where law enforcement and dogs conducted a search 18 years earlier.
Kristen Modafferi went missing after her shift at a San Francisco coffee shop.
Modafferi was from Charlotte, North Carolina and a student at North Carolina State University. Her father, Bob Modafferi, told CBS affiliate WBTV that the family hired Dostie, and that Oakland police responded to help the investigation after the dog detected the remains in the home's basement.
Kristen left Charlotte for San Francisco on June 1, 1997 -- her 18th birthday, reports the station. She planned to live and work in the city that summer and take photography courses at the University of California at Berkeley to complement her industrial design major at North Carolina State.
"It's certainly mixed feelings. In a perfect world I'd love to learn Kristen was alive and some unbelievable thing happened to her and she would come back to join our family," Bob Modafferi told the station. "Short of that, not knowing what happened to her is the worst. So if we're able to get closure and determine this is where Kristen is and get justice for whoever did this to her, that would be a tremendous relief to her family."
Tips can be reported to Oakland Police.