Friday, July 6, 2007
Search for missing Rancho Santa Margarita woman narrows
Two 'persons of interest' named in search for 19-year-old last seen with man she met on Web site.
By SALVADOR HERNANDEZ and KIMBERLY EDDS
The Orange County Register
RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA – A registered sex offender and another man have been named as persons of interest in the case of a 19-year-old girl who disappeared two weeks ago after climbing onto the back of a motorcycle with a man wearing a black helmet to head to a house party.
Hours after Donna Jou left home, she talked to a friend over the phone for about 20 minutes and told him she had locked herself in a bathroom because the guy she was with was "freaking her out," Jou's parents said.
Friends and family said they haven't heard from the San Diego State University student since then, and authorities are asking for the public's help to find her.
Donna Jou told her mother the man who was picking her up June 23 was her friend's boyfriend, but authorities said she actually met the man on the Internet through craigslist.com.
Late Thursday, sheriff's officials released the pictures of a man Jou's family says picked Jou up and whisked her away on his motorcycle. Authorities have been unable to identify him – but investigators downloaded his picture from Jou's computer, Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said. He is known as "Skinny Puppy" or "Kyle."
Authorities are also looking for John Steven Burgess, a registered sex offender who was renting a Los Angeles-area house where Jou was last seen June 23 or 24.
"Detectives just want to talk to both of these men," Amormino said.
Friends and family have tried to contact Donna on her cell phone since she went missing June 23, but attempts to reach her go straight to her voice mail.
"I don't know where to go, what to do, and we know something bad happened," said Reza Jou, Donna's father.
Donna, who was staying at her mother's home in Rancho Santa Margarita during the summer, was headed to a house party in Santa Monica and mentioned the name Kyle to her mother before leaving the house.
When Donna climbed onto the back of the motorcycle at 5:30 p.m., Nili Jou saw undistinguishable tattoos on the man's left shoulder, and described him as wearing a white sleeveless shirt, blue jeans and a black motorcycle helmet.
Donna's parents say her daughter talked to a friend from San Diego for about 20 minutes later that day, telling him that her friend didn't show up to the party and that she was locked inside a bathroom because the guy she was with was "freaking her out" and he "wouldn't get the hint," they said.
"She said the guy was acting weird and she was trying to avoid him," Reza Jou said. "I think this is the guy they have to look for."
On June 24, Nili Jou received a text message from Donna's phone saying her cell phone battery was dying and that she would be home later that day.
Now she wonders if it was her daughter who sent the message.
At first her parents thought she might have spent the night at a friend's house, but she never came back home.
Donna, who aspires to be a neurologist, didn't show up for her summer class at Santiago Canyon College in Orange the following Monday either, Nili Jou said.
The sheriff's office can be reached at 714-647-7049.
Contact the writer: shernandez@ocregister.com or 949-454-7361
Authorities are looking for this man, possibly known as Skinny Puppy or Kyle, in connection with the disappearance of Donna Jou.
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