STEPHANY PINEDA - 16 yo (2010) - Lincoln County (NW of Charlotte) NC

Family fears missing teen girl was abducted

Jan 07, 2011 6:50 AM


Stephany Pineda Click image to enlarge

LINCOLN COUNTY, NC (WBTV) - Authorities in
Lincoln County are looking for a teen girl who has been missing since
mid-December and her family fears she was abducted.

Stephany Pineda was last seen on December 14, 2010, while walking home from school.

She is listed as a student on the Lincolnton High School website.

A flyer released by the family claims Pineda may be in the company of Leonardo Guerrero.

According to the Lincoln County
Sheriff's Office, a missing persons' report has been filed on behalf of
Pineda and she has been entered into NCIC.

If you know where she may be, call the Lincolnton Police Department at 704-736-8900.
http://www.wbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13795604

Lincoln Co. teen still missing nearly a month after last sighting

Tuesday, January 11, 2011 9:19 AM EST



LINCOLN COUNTY, NC (WBTV) - Authorities in Lincoln County are looking for a teen girl who has been missing for nearly a month.
The family of the 16 year old girl fears that she was abducted and is with a grown man.

Stephany Pineda was last seen on December 14, 2010, while walking home from school.

She is listed as a student on
the Lincolnton High School website and was chosen as a "Positive Action
Wolf" in September. According to the school, those students are
recognized for their "positive actions" while at school -- instead
of students only being recognized for a penalty.

A flyer released by the family in early January claims Pineda may be in the company of a man.

That man, they named as Leonardo Guerrero.

According to the Lincoln County
Sheriff's Office, a missing persons' report was filed on behalf of
Pineda and she has been entered into NCIC.

If you know where she may be, call the Lincolnton Police Department at 704-736-8900.

http://www.wbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13821862

Human trafficking: A parent's nightmare
April 08, 2011 11:50 PM

Have you seen Stephany Pineda or Leonardo Guerrero:
Lincolnton Police would like anyone with tips to call 704-736-8900. Anonymous
calls can be made to Crime Stoppers at 704-736-8909.
Human trafficking in North Carolina and the U.S.
- North Carolina is eighth in the nation for human trafficking.
- The U.S. State Department estimates 14,500 to 17,500 people are
trafficked into this country each year. Of these, more than 80 percent
are women and 70 percent of them are forced into the commercial sex
trade.
- The United States is the second highest destination in the world for trafficked women.
- The FBI estimates approximately 23 percent of those trafficked into the United States arrive in the Southeast.
- Reports of trafficked or potentially trafficked victims have been
documented across North Carolina, both in cities and rural areas.
Persons trafficked into North Carolina are from the following
ethnicities: 61 percent Hispanic, 18 percent African-American, followed
by a growing percentage of Asians.
Source: Charlotte Human Trafficking Task Force
Signs of abuse
- Human trafficking victims are often isolated and typically moved
from place to place. Relocating a victim keeps the person confused,
detached and unfamiliar with his or her surroundings.
- Victims are often runaways. They are targeted because they are vulnerable.
- Places used to harbor trafficking victims can be identified by some physical characteristics.
Some indicators include:
Barbed wire surrounding a home
Bodyguards around a home, factory or business
Bars on windows of home or factory
Vehicles coming and going at odd hours
Men coming and leaving at odd hours
People being escorted to and from a building
Lots of people being loaded into a vehicle
To get help, call the 24-hour AVID line, 704-864-0060.
Source: Assault & Victimization Intervention & Deterrence
Sexual assault stats
- One in six women in the United States will be the victim of rape or attempted rape.
- One in 33 men in the U.S. will be the victim of rape or attempted rape.
- One in four girls and one in six boys will be the object of some type of sexual assault or attempt.
Source: Assault & Victimization Intervention & Deterrence

Karla Lopez never required her teenage daughter to work. She only wanted her to be a good student and focus on her future.
Now Lopez fears her 16 year old might be working to stay alive, a victim of human trafficking.
Lopez’s daughter, Stephany Pineda, dashed out the door Dec. 14, late
for school. She made it to the bus stop but never arrived at Lincolnton
High School. A family friend called Lopez and told her Pineda was
spotted riding off in a car with two men.
That was nearly four months ago.
Since her daughter’s disappearance, Lopez has learned a lot about
human trafficking. She’s afraid Stephany might be a victim of the crime
and that she may never see her again.
A community targeted
The number of Latino victims of human trafficking continues to climb,
according to Nancy Newman, director of AVID (Assault &
Victimization Intervention & Deterrence).
Predators working in the human trafficking trade often prey on the immigrant community because they see them as easy targets.
Language barriers, cultural differences and fear often keep people in
the Hispanic community from reporting incidents to police, or at least
delay the process, said Newman.
AVID works with interpreters and local police to make victims feel more at ease with the process, she said.
“Our local police have really worked hard to bridge the gap for them,” she said.
But for people used to a different type of police presence, trust doesn’t come easy.
Many of these girls and women are snatched right off the street, as
Lopez suspects her daughter was. Others enter the U.S. looking for a
better life, often thinking they’re going through the proper channels,
only to end up enslaved.
Many of the immigrants in North Carolina — particularly women and
young girls — are lured by traffickers with the promise of a better
life. Once they arrive, their identification and travel documents are
taken away. They are then forced to work as prostitutes or made to do
forced labor with the threat that they, or their families, will be
harmed if they try to escape, according to the Charlotte Human
Trafficking Task Force.
Money-making industry
Human trafficking often brings to mind sexual slavery. But the
billion-dollar industry also includes manual labor and domestic
servitude.
North Carolina’s location makes it an increasingly attractive
regional hub for human trafficking. It’s an area where multiple
interstates intersect with a short drive to Atlanta, said Newman.
The trade of human trafficking often includes the buying and selling
of people for as little as $130, according to the trafficking task
force. Captives are moved frequently so that they remain unnoticed and
confused about where they are.
Women are often locked in rooms with few clothes. They fear being beaten if they try to escape.
According to the task force, brothel operators sometimes keep half of
the fees they charge customers and give the women the other half, which
then goes to pay off debts owed for helping them get into the country.
A pimp or brothel owner stands to make a significant amount of money off of just one captive.
A $30 “trick” can add up to $75,000 to $250,000 for a pimp, according to an article in the Biblical Recorder.
Endangered and missing
Lopez got visits from some of her daughter’s friends, and enjoyed a
complimentary phone call from one of her teachers who said the teen has
potential to go far in life.
Lopez describes Pineda, the oldest of her three children, as a good
student, a caring sister to her younger brothers and a helpful daughter.
She wants to be a therapist. Lopez just wants her to be safe.
Pineda was listed as a runaway for three months.
Norma Aguilar-Freyre, an advocate with AVID, has been by Lopez’s
side, interpreting for her and talking to police and Pineda’s friends in
hopes of finding the teen.
Their persistence got Pineda’s status changed from “runaway” to “missing endangered” just last week.
Detective Mark Sain with the Lincolnton Police Department didn’t
quickly jump on the theory that Pineda was sold into slavery, but he is
following leads in hopes of reuniting the teen with her family.
When Lopez that a local man might know where her daughter was, she got his address and went to his apartment.
Lopez asked Leonardo Guerrero about her daughter.
“Where is Stephany? Where is Stephany?” she asked him repeatedly.
Guerrero attempted to shut the door, but Lopez blocked it with her
foot. She said the man then put his hands around her neck and pushed her
against the wall.
The frantic woman left the Lincolnton apartment complex and reported
the incident to police. When she returned to his residence , the door
was ajar and he was gone.
Police have issued two warrants for Guerrero, one for assault and another for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Sain said he hopes the warrants will lead to an arrest, but Guerrero’s whereabouts are unknown.
Stalled investigation
An anonymous call gave hope to the quest to find Pineda. A man said he saw her at a store in Lincolnton.
Surveillance photos showed a woman who looked a little like the teen,
but it wasn’t her. Not much more has been revealed on where Pineda
might be, said Sain.
“We haven’t had any good leads as to whether she’s still in
Lincolnton or not. We don’t know,” he said. “All we know is she’s
missing.”
Lopez said there’s been no activity on her daughter’s Facebook page. And she hasn’t called any friends or family.
Lopez is convinced that something bad has happened to her daughter.
Nothing else would keep her from letting her family know she’s all
right, she said.
Lopez monitors her daughter’s cell phone. Pineda left it behind the day she rushed out the door to the bus stop.
In January, Lopez got a call on Pineda’s phone. The person spoke
English, so she couldn’t understand what was said. Detectives traced the
call. It was from a prepaid phone
Holding onto hope
Tears fall from Lopez’s eyes. She drops her head and expresses her sorrow through sobs and Spanish words.
She wants to hold onto hope that her daughter is alive, but she fears that something terrible has happened.
Whether the 16 year old has endured a horrific experience or merely
lost her way, her mother believes they will be reunited one day.
“I have faith in God that, regardless, I will see her again. I just want her to still be alive,” said Lopez.
http://www.gastongazette.com/news/lopez-56624-human-trafficking.html

Mother frantic over missing teen daughter

by: Jenna-Ley Harrison

(4/1/2011)


16-year-old
Stephany Pineda (left) has been missing for three months and police
think she may be in the company of Leonardo Guerrero, 28 (right).

More than three months after Lincolnton teen Stephany Pineda’s mysterious
disappearance, her mother speaks out about the day she last saw her daughter.

Pineda, a 16-year-old junior at Lincolnton High School, was last seen walking
to the bus stop just after 7 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2010, police said.

While authorities believe Pineda may be with Leonardo “Leo” Guerrero, 28, of
Lincolnton, police have received no confirmation from witnesses in the
community that the two were together that day or any other day leading
up to the teen’s disappearance.

However, Pineda’s mother Carla Lopez is fully convinced that her daughter is
with Guerrero and has possibly been kidnapped or the victim of sex
trafficking, a common crime among the Latino community according to
Norma Aguilar-Freyre, Latino outreach coordinator for Lincoln and
Gaston County’s Assault & Victimization Intervention & Deterrence program (AVID).

Because Lopez speaks only Spanish, Aguilar-Freyre translated the mother’s comments in a
special interview with the Times-News, disclosing never-before-revealed details of
both the day her daughter disappeared and the months that followed.

Lopez said a neighbor working as a cashier at La Libertad on N. Aspen Street
told her that Guerrero regularly came into the Hispanic grocery store
in the past to cash checks, saying he was in love with a girl and that
the only way he could be with her was to kidnap her.
Lopez also said witnesses in the store would hear him talking to himself and acting nervous.

However, when police interviewed two of the store’s cashiers, they simply said that Guerrero looked familiar.

While police refused to go on-the-record about the idea that Pineda could be
the victim of sex trafficking, they did reveal that Guerrero was
deported back to his home country of Honduras in 2009 after illegal
entry into the United States.

Since then, there has been no record of Guerrero’s re-entry into the country.

However, Lopez strongly believes that Guerrero has taken her daughter to the “hub
of human trafficking” in Atlanta, the site of one of the country’s
busiest international airports according to Aguilar-Freyre.

“As a mom, I know something bad has happened to my daughter,” she said. “I just know.”

In addition, Lopez believes her daughter to be with Guerrero because she
said witnesses told her they had seen the Honduran-native speak with
Pineda near the bus stop the day she went missing and spotted her
inside a vehicle with Guerrero and another unidentified man a short time later.

Witnesses also told Lopez that they never actually saw him put the girl into the
vehicle but gave her an address where she could find Guerrero.

Lopez said she ran to the residence on Colonial Village Drive and frantically
asked Guerrero about her daughter’s whereabouts.
“I was yelling for Stephany, but he pushed me out of the place,” she said.


Police also showed up later that day to question two other men who they said were staying there.

The men were reportedly “evasive” with police and said Guerrero was a family friend but that they didn’t really know him.

Police have secured two warrants against Guerrero including assault for his
alleged aggressive behavior with Lopez at his residence and
contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile for supposedly keeping
the teen out of school numerous days since August.
Pineda missed 22 school days in November and December alone, police said.

But Lopez not only denied claims that the two were dating or hung out
regularly but also said Pineda was at home most days she was not at school.

“I never knew of her having a boyfriend,” she said.

In addition, Lopez was surprised by her daughter’s high volume of absences
and wanted to know why the school never contacted her about the issue.

However, Lopez did note that Pineda had encountered Guerrero several times when
he was sick in the hospital. She said a woman who knew Guerrero had
reportedly asked Pineda to serve as his translator at the hospital.
However, Lopez thought her daughter had too much else to do and
eventually made her stop.

Without proof that Guerrero actually kidnapped Pineda, police said they are
forced to identify the teen as a “run-away,” a label that upsets both
Lopez and Aguilar-Freyre who believe that, more often than not, minors
in the Latino community are stamped with the classification even when
no evidence exists that a child has willingly fled.
Lopez said her daughter never had aggressive behavior beyond that of a
“normal moody teenager” and has full-confidence that she didn’t run away.

“Some days she was sweet and some days she was not,” she said.
“She was like a normal teenager — she loved to read and loved music.”

Police said they’ve had to initiate all their contacts in the case so far and
have yet to hear from anyone in the Latino community other than Pineda’s mother.

In addition, authorities are concerned that many members of the Latino
community are holding back necessary information in the case, perhaps
for fear of being deported. They also believe witnesses aren’t coming
forward because of a language barrier.

However, Det. Mark Sain reassured sources that they may remain
anonymous and need not fear punishment from police.

Sain said police are doing what’s necessary to bring Pineda home and while
they’ve investigated several leads that they believed were moving them
in the right direction, all proved unsuccessful in the end.
First, authorities reportedly received a tip on Feb. 1 from a girl on Deaton
Avenue who claimed Guerrero had called her. However, the lead proved to
be false after police traced the call to Carrie Street where the girl’s
sister had made a prank call pretending to be Guerrero.


Police said they had a second lead on Feb. 25 after a man told them he noticed
a girl that looked like Pineda hanging out in front of the A-1 Express
Mart convenience store on E. Main Street.

The man said he had seen Pineda’s photo and information at a local cattle sale.
However, police discovered the girl was not Pineda after viewing the store’s video surveillance.

In addition, police reportedly called Guerrero’s cell phone two days after
Pineda went missing. Although no one answered the call, the number
later contacted the police department, and a voice identified herself
as Stephany.

“She said she was OK,” Sain said.

However, Guerrero’s number was no longer in service when authorities attempted to call back at a later date.

Police got the same response when they contacted a number they said was from
Montana. Lopez had reportedly received calls from the number on more
than on occasion including once very early in the morning. She said the
caller sounded like a woman and spoke English so she was unable to
understand the conversation. However, she did say the caller mentioned
her daughter’s name.

Police were unable to trace the call since they said it came from a pre-paid
phone linked to a company rather than an individual.
In addition, Aguilar-Freyre said that although Pineda’s Facebook page has
had no activity in months, Guerrero’s account was recently changed from
public to private, a minor detail that continues to keep those close to
Pineda questioning his involvement in the incident.


However, authorities continue to remain stumped in the case.
“We’ve considered everything,” Sain said. “It’s a strange, strange case.”
Yet Sain promised that authorities aren’t giving up.
“We’ll follow up on every tip and lead,” he said. “The least little thing might lead us to her.”
Sain is also confident that with two warrants out on Guerrero, it won’t be long before the law catches up with him.

“Maybe something as simple as a traffic stop,” he said.
Anyone with information about Pineda or Guerrero is asked to contact Det. Mark
Sain at 704-736-8900 or CRIMESTOPPERS at 704-736-8909.

http://www.lincolntimesnews.com/Default.asp?Section=20&VA=24726

Missing teen calls home, search called off
June 13, 2011 5:41 PM

Karla Lopez got the call she’d been waiting for.
For six months the Lincolnton woman didn’t know if her 16-year-old
daughter was dead or alive. A single phone call last weekend answered
the question.
She’s alive.
Gone missing
Stephany Pineda dashed out the door on Dec. 14, late for school. She
made it to the bus stop but never arrived at Lincolnton High School. A
family friend called Lopez and told her Pineda was spotted riding off in
a car with two men.
Pineda was in such a hurry when she left that day that she forgot her cell phone.
In January, Lopez got a call on Pineda’s phone. The person spoke
English, so she couldn’t understand what was said. Detectives traced the
call. It was from a prepaid phone.
Lopez said in an April interview that there’s been no activity on her
daughter’s Facebook page. And she hadn’t called any friends or family.
Ended investigation
Lopez gave an interview to detectives with the Lincolnton Police Department following the phone call on June 4.
That meeting put an end to the investigation, according to Detective Mark Sain.
“Her mom came in and gave us a statement saying basically that she didn’t want the police looking for her anymore,” said Sain.
Lopez did not ask to have the call traced for its location, and she did not tell police where her daughter called from.
But Sain said he sensed that Lopez was put at ease by the conversation.
“Mom was happy. She didn’t have a distraught look about her anymore,” said Sain.
Pineda has now been removed from the missing persons list, police said.
Lopez fought to get her daughter’s name put on that list nearly three months ago.
Pineda was listed as a runaway for three months.
Lopez worked with Assault & Victimization Intervention &
Deterrence in Gastonia to get her daughter’s status changed to
endangered and missing.
Lopez feared her daughter may have become a victim of human trafficking.
‘This child is still in danger’
Lopez spent time with AVID advocates following her daughter’s disappearance.
She learned a lot about human trafficking and the way that Hispanics
are often targeted in the trade. She often thought about the horrific
conditions her daughter could be enduring.
Since the phone call, Lopez has not given many details to police or
AVID advocates. She has just said that she heard from Stephany and
doesn’t want to stir up any more trouble, according to Nancy Newman,
AVID director.
Despite the phone call, Newman isn’t convinced that the teenager is in a safe environment.
“My instincts are strong that this child is still in danger,” she said.
Lopez and Newman believe that Pineda left town with Leonardo
Guerrero, a 28-year-old man with outstanding warrants in Lincoln County.
Just because the girl’s mother has called off the search, doesn’t mean the danger should be dismissed, said Newman.
“Even if a 16-year-old girl goes voluntarily with a 28-year-old male,
there is reason for grave concern,” said Newman. “The influence of an
adult over a child can be, and in this case, is abusive. To take a child
away from home under any pretext is unacceptable.”
Future for the teen
Stephany Pineda was a good student.
She pitched in a lot around the house and helped her mother care for her younger brother and sister.
She wanted to be a therapist.
What the future holds for the teen is no longer certain.
Although her mother has heard from her, Pineda is not back at home.
She isn’t registered to complete her senior year at Lincolnton High
School in the fall.
Lopez gave an interview with The Gazette in April, with the assistance of an interpreter.
She was not interested in a follow up interview Monday.
You can reach Diane Turbyfill at 704-869-1817.
http://www.gastongazette.com/news/karla-58318-lopez-call.html

From: posters@ncmec.org
Subject: Missing Child Poster Partner Restriction - North Carolina
To:
Date: Monday, June 13, 2011, 2:39 PM

Stephany Pineda missing from Lincolnton, NC, has been restricted. Please discontinue dissemination of this poster.

Please remove and discard any posters on this case that you have placed in public view.

We greatly appreciate your part in our efforts to reunite families.


Thank you for your support.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
Visit our web site at www.missingkids.com.

I suspect that NCMEC pulled her as she has turned 18 and can cavort wherever she wishes without parental approval.
That doesn't mean her family is still not "missing" her...

TomTerrific0420 wrote:I suspect that NCMEC pulled her as she has turned 18 and can cavort wherever she wishes without parental approval.
That doesn't mean her family is still not "missing" her...

Exactly Tom. I hope she is continuing to keep in touch with her family.