WICHITA, Kan.—The FBI was assisting in the search Friday for a Kansas newborn a day after her mother was shot to death in her home, police said.
The week-old infant’s father returned home from work Thursday and found the body of his live-in, 27-year-old girlfriend, Laura Abarca-Nogueda, police said Friday. Their infant daughter, Sofia Victoria Gonzalez Abarca, was missing, her whereabouts still unclear Friday.
The girl’s father was not considered a suspect, police Sgt. Nikki Woodrow said.
Authorities as of midday Friday had not issued an Amber Alert seeking the public’s help in finding Sofia because investigators haven’t identified a suspect, Woodrow said.
The slain woman’s brother, Israel Abarca, declined to discuss the matter Friday, telling The Associated Press by telephone that the family would have no public comment.
Bridget Patton, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Kansas City, Missouri, said that agency has deployed a team specializing in investigating child abductions. She deferred additional questions to Wichita police, saying only that federal agents were “in an assistance capacity to Wichita.”
Police sent out an alert Thursday night saying the driver of a purple Cadillac who had been a person of interest in the case had been found, questioned and eliminated as a suspect.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said Friday it has dispatched members of its “Team Adam”—retired law enforcers—to assist in the search for Sofia.
