UPDATE: Dig Wraps Up At Sacramento Home Of Woman Missing Since 2008
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - Digging continued on Thursday morning at a Sacramento home as investigators look for clues that could help them unlock a 4-year-old missing person mystery, but they're confident a body isn't buried in the yard.
Regina Garcia of Sacramento has been missing since 2008, when she was 33. She lived in a home in the 1600 block Stewart Road in the Arden Arcade area with boyfriend Randy Macedo, 56, who reported her missing.
Sacramento County sheriff's deputies began digging in the large backyard of the home on Wednesday and continued on Thursday with the help of cadaver dogs. They also used a Bobcat and manual digging and sifting equipment to search the yard, described as a junkyard with lots of debris.
The dig was being wrapped up around noon on Thursday and investigators will process what they seized.
On Thursday, Deputy Jason Ramos revealed that the sheriff's department received a tip to check on the welfare of a 7-year-old child in June and that's when Macedo was arrested on gun, drug and explosives charges, including possession of an assault weapon and silencer, according to jail records. The 7-year-old is Garcia's child with Macedo.
That prompted deputies to get a search warrant to for the home and yard.
The child is now in custody with family. An elderly man who lived at the home as left to stay with other family as crews searched property.
It was believed at first Garcia may have simply run off. But now, acting on new information, deputies are back at square one searching the same place where the investigation began.
"We don't know yet. They need to be analyzed," Ramos said Wednesday on what might have been found.
Macedo was arrested June 7 and is still locked up at the Sacramento County Jail on $1 million bail.
"He wasn't really a nice person," said neighbor Curtis Glanzer.
It's clear Macedo didn't leave a good impression with his next door neighbor.
"He had a dog and, unfortunately for the dog, he didn't do much with it. It was pretty much abused and I had a couple of interactions with him about the dog, like 'hey man, can we do something about this' and his reaction was for me, pretty much to throw rocks at his dog," said Glanzer.
As he sits behind bars, Macedo has not named as a suspect in the disappearance. In fact, nobody has.
"As far as implicating anyone, it's too early to go there and put that label on anybody," said Ramos.
