Missing N. California Realtor Briana Ferguson Found Dead in Another County

A Northern California realtor who was reported missing earlier this week was found dead in in Nevada County, California, on Dec. 19, reported the Sacramento Bee. (Roseville Police)

A Northern California realtor who was reported missing earlier this week was found dead in Nevada County, California, on Dec. 19, reported the Sacramento Bee.

Briana Ferguson, 41, was seen last Friday in Roseville, near Sacramento, but she was reported missing on Monday when she didn’t show up for work, the report said.

Officials received a tip on Wednesday regarding a sighting of the woman’s Jeep Grand Cherokee in Nevada County, located in northeastern California, said Rob Baquera, spokesman for the Roseville Police Department.

Chief Deputy Coroner Mike Sullivan also issued a statement: “Our agency received a welfare check request from the Roseville Police Department to check the end of Greenhorn Road for Ms. Ferguson’s vehicle. ... She was located deceased outside the vehicle.”

Deputies were able to locate her vehicle and confirmed it belonged to her, and they discovered her body nearby, he said.

The Nevada County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the case, but foul play is not suspected in her death, Baquera stated.

Ferguson, a wife and mother, owned a property management company in Roseville.

“This is an unfortunate end to the situation, certainly, the worst case scenario,” Baquera said, reported NBC affiliate KCRA. “Our hearts go out to her family and to all of her friends.”

Her body was found just days after police released her photo with a description of her and the vehicle she was driving.

“At this time, why she was in that area is unknown and the whole sequence of how she ended up there is still under investigation,“ Baquera said. ”We’re still trying to put the pieces together.”

“The thing that makes this suspicious is she doesn’t have a history of doing this,” added Baquera, according to Fox40. “This is abnormal behavior for her to go missing for days at a time. That, of course, is red flags for the family and for the police department.”

Her cause of death is not known yet, he said.

Her husband was the one to report Ferguson missing, according to reports.

“I’m just really missing my wife and if anybody knows anything, just ask them to contact the Roseville Police Department so we could find her and get her home ‘cause her daughter misses her,” Dan Ferguson, her husband of 15 years, told Fox40.

During the search for her, other real estate agents posted messages on social media to help find her, Inman.com reported.

“Sending love and prayers to her family,” Keller Williams agent Brianne Watters said on Facebook.

Other details about the case are not clear.

Missing Children Update

There were 464,324 missing children reported in the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) in 2017, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Under federal law, when children are reported missing to law enforcement they must be entered into the database. In 2016, there were 465,676 entries.

“This number represents reports of missing children. That means if a child runs away multiple times in a year, each instance would be entered into NCIC separately and counted in the yearly total. Likewise, if an entry is withdrawn and amended or updated, that would also be reflected in the total,” the center noted.