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Body found during search for Texas teen who went missing on Christmas Eve, sheriff says

Body found during search for Texas teen who went missing on Christmas Eve, sheriff says
3 hours 45 minutes 3 seconds ago Tuesday, December 30 2025 Dec 30, 2025 December 30, 2025 7:14 PM December 30, 2025 in News - Texas news
Source: CNN
Camila Mendoza Olmos appears to have had her car keys with her when she disappeared, but didn't take the vehicle or her cellphone, authorities say. Bexar County Sheriff's Office via CNN Newsource
Originally Published: 29 DEC 25 12:12 ET
Updated: 30 DEC 25 20:14 ET

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(CNN) — A body has been found during the search for Camila Mendoza Olmos, the teenager who went missing near San Antonio the day before Christmas, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Tuesday afternoon.

Salazar said it was too early to identify whether it was the body of the 19-year-old, but the area where the remains were found was near Mendoza Olmos’ home, the sheriff said.

He added officials do not suspect foul play, but the body did have “indicators” of self harm.

Officials had been aware and looking for a firearm belonging to one of Mendoza Olmos’ relatives that had been missing, Salazar said. A firearm was recovered near the body Tuesday, but police haven’t processed it yet, the sheriff said.

Dozens of volunteers throughout the holiday weekend helped in the search, and the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office had said she could be in imminent danger.

Asked previously why his office believes she might be in imminent danger, Salazar told CNN on Monday, “there’s some information I can’t divulge … due to the sensitivity of it.”

“We consider imminent danger to be anything from self-harm all the way through someone actually kidnapping Camila, and all of those possibilities exist at present,” Salazar said on Monday, noting that the missing woman had previously spoken of suicide. “We can’t rule anything out at this point in the investigation."

Members of the community had lined up with maps and a drone to try to solve the mysterious disappearance.

“I thought I would find her like other times, walking, and we would come home together,” Rosario Olmos said in Spanish to CNN affiliate KENS after her daughter had gone missing the day before.

“I miss her. Daddy’s waiting for her at home,” her father, Alfonso Mendoza, had told CNN affiliate KSAT.

Mendoza Olmos was last seen on a neighbor’s surveillance camera just before 7 a.m. on Christmas Eve outside her house. After she is seen looking inside her vehicle, the footage ends, according to the sheriff’s office, and there is no clear sign of where she went.

“As a Ring camera, it stops when it stops detecting motion,” Camila Estrella, one of Mendoza Olmos’ best friends, told CNN affiliate WOAI. “That’s all we saw of her, just opening the back of her car door. … We have nothing to trace her with.”

Family members and investigators say they’re not sure why she was looking inside the car. Since the vehicle was left behind, they believe she left the neighborhood on foot.

The sheriff’s office released a second video Monday showing what investigators believe is the last confirmed sighting of the teen. Dash-cam footage shared by a driver on their way to work around 7 a.m. on Christmas Eve shows a pedestrian believed to be Mendoza Olmos walking northbound on Wildhorse Parkway, between Shetland Wind and Caspian Spring.

Police urged residents to share any available video that could help aid in their search.

The trail left for investigators to follow is confusing. Mendoza Olmos appears to have had her car keys with her when she disappeared, even though she didn’t take the car.

“One of the things that was very strange in this case is that the young lady left behind her cellphone,” Salazar told CNN.

The teen also left behind an iPad, according to police.

The notice of Mendoza Olmos’ disappearance was issued as a CLEAR Alert. In Texas, that requires investigators to believe that the missing person “is in imminent danger of bodily injury or death” or the disappearance is “involuntary such as an abduction or kidnapping,” according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Her mother told CNN affiliate KWEX she doesn’t think her daughter would voluntarily leave with a stranger.

“Cami’s not like that,” Olmos said. “Cami is very careful.”

Without a cellphone to monitor her movements, investigators had been looking for other evidence of where Mendoza Olmos may have gone, Salazar told CNN.

“The FBI and Homeland Security have been helping us out with intel gathering,” he said on Monday. “Things like outbound flights, border crossings, things like that.”

Authorities in Nuevo León, Mexico – where Mendoza Olmos has some family – have even put out a missing persons flyer about the teen, according to a post on the missing persons division of the Nuevo León Attorney General’s office Facebook page and her aunt, Celia Nora Olmos Sánchez, who lives locally.

As the news of Mendoza Olmos’ disappearance spread across the community, the search efforts have grown more intense.

“We’ve gone day and night, scraping our legs, not eating, just helping,” Estrella told WOAI.

And with local investigators working “basically around the clock” to find Mendoza Olmos, according to Salazar, her mother is asking for prayers that her holiday will end with joy.

“Please bring her back to us, or if my girl is watching, come back. That’s what we’re asking for,” Olmos told KWEX.

“She has a family that loves her,” Olmos added. “She has a life to live.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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