OAKLEY — Gwyn Gabe stared out at the gathering of media members inside City Hall and then spoke to the microphones and cameras, desperately pleading for any help as the search for his 24-year-old daughter, Alexis, enters its fourth month.
“Tell us where our daughter he is,” he said. “Help us bring her back home. We need our daughter back.”
Alexis Gabe vanished on Jan. 26. On Thursday, police acknowledged that foul play was likely involved in her disappearance. The city of Oakley announced a $10,000 reward that will be given to anyone with information that helps locate her.
“Alexis is an amazing woman, daughter, sister and friend,” Gwyn Gabe said, in the family’s first public comments since her disappearance. “She is genuine, kind, smart and loyal. She is full of wit and humor. She still has so much life and joy left to share. We are pleading to whoever has information about Alexis’ disappearance to please come forward.”
Det. Tyler Horn said investigators have gained enough information that they believe Gabe “did not disappear by accident or choice. We believe it was foul play.”
Police also released surveillance tape of a man seen walking in an area near where they found Gabe’s vehicle abandoned on the night she disappeared. Police said he is a person of interest and that they believe he dropped off the car.
Gabe, a recent nursing school graduate, was reportedly last seen at her ex-boyfriend’s home in Antioch. Police found her car, a light blue Infiniti, the next day, with the keys in the ignition, on Trenton Street and Carrington Drive.
Police searched the ex-boyfriend’s home with a search warrant but have not named him as a suspect.
Det. Tyler Horn said the surveillance tape released by police was one of many shot of the same man in the area of Oakley Road and Beldin Lane, “about four to five minutes away,” he said.
Police said the man seen in the clip is around 6 feet tall with a skinny build and dark skin. He was wearing a large overcoat with a hood and had an N-95 mask with hair from a beard coming out of it.
Gwyn Gabe called the time without his daughter “three long, excruciating months.”
“Since our daughter went missing, we questioned our faith,” he continued. “We’ve been completely overwhelmed and filled with doubt and despair. But with the love and support of those around us, we continue to find renewed strength and hope everyday.”
Police Chief Paul Beard said the case has grown into the biggest in the department’s short history; the police department began operating separately of the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office in 2006. Beard added that investigators have devoted “seven days a week, sometimes 24 hours a day” to the search.
“Alexis is a person that the Oakley Police Department feels very close to at this point,” Beard said.
Source: www.mercurynews.com