[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Well, this was a truly horrifying moment amid an already fraught situation…
In case you haven’t been following the case, a 16-year-old girl named Kiely Rodni went missing after attending a party in the woods not far from Lake Tahoe. The Truckee, California native spoke to her boyfriend and her mother on the phone, asked her BFF if she needed a ride home, then when she was supposed to be headed back in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, August 6, she just… vanished. According to authorities, her phone went off shortly before 1 a.m., and no one has heard from her since. Because her car, a 2013 silver Honda SUV, also went missing, police are treating the disappearance as a potential abduction.
Law enforcement are pulling out all the stops. They’ve employed K-9 units, dive teams, helicopters, searching in an ever-widening radius from the Placer County forest area where the high school blowout took place.
Related: Florida Mother Missing Following Canceled Plans To See Her Children
So far police have received over 1200 tips on a hotline. But one in particular was by far the most disturbing. Placer County Sheriff’s Office public information officer Angela Musallam explained in a press conference on Saturday that led law enforcement had gotten word of what was described as “a potential burial site” near the Prosser Family campground where the party had taken place.
“Yesterday there was a potential burial site that was located near the campground. It was located by a search-and-rescue ground team. Kiely’s family was notified of the potential development.”
The dread her poor family must have experienced at being informed of such a development. That wait must have been excruciating. Thankfully on Saturday it was confirmed this was not the grave of the teen — but it was where a body was buried. Musallam continued:
“The FBI responded to secure the scene yesterday and was accompanied by the Placer and Nevada county sheriff’s offices. The FBI agents investigated the site through early this morning and recovered the remains of a dog.”
Sad for the dog and its owner, obviously. But what a relief for the family!
Kiely’s loved ones have been particularly on edge as more information has come out about the party. Kiely’s friend Sami Smith told The Sun there were a few “sketchy, older guys” who crashed the party, which was supposed to be all high schoolers. She revealed last week:
“Now we know there were a lot of college people. Teens are coming out [with information] in our teen-to-teen talks. There were a lot of sketchy, older guys that were seen there. This was right about when I left when we had the last contact.”
Marika Beck, a friend of Kiely’s mom, told the outlet the missing teen had told her mother she heard that “a lot of older boys had crashed the party” before she left. Marika revealed:
“Around 12.30am, these guys showed up and it got kind of weird. A lot of the younger teens chose to leave at this time. It was meant to be just teens in the woods, they party there all the time, it’s unregulated and it’s not a campground.”
Beck confirmed they’ve heard there was “drinking and stuff” at the party — but the real worry was the older men preying on teens. Convinced Kiely would not have willingly run away, she revealed the family has “been told she may have been with one or more older boys.” She lamented:
“We’re really concerned she’s been taken out of state, potentially trafficked, and heading to the borders, so if we can get the borders actively lock down and patrolled for every f**king car that goes through there, it’s very likely she’s still in the car because they haven’t found it.”
Such a scary situation. The worst thing would have been finding her in that grave. Not knowing is the second worst…
If you have any information, you can call the hotline at (530) 581-6320 or go to FindKiely.com or the family’s GoFundMe.
[Image via FindKiely.com/Placer County Sheriff’s Office/Facebook.]
