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Missing Florida Woman Captured On Video Swimming In River Before Disappearance
Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez and eight other marine deputies planned to search the area of river where the images were taken with state-of-the-art technology Thursday as the search for 31-year-old Paola Marie Miranda-Rosa continues.
Newly surfaced videos and photos show a missing Florida women swimming in a river the day she disappeared.
The video and two photos captured by hikers in the area and released by the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office show 31-year-old Paola Marie Miranda-Rosa wading into the Wekiva River in Wekiwa Springs State Park on December 18.
Investigators are now scouring a 4-and-a-half mile section of the river near where the photos had been taken, after the sheriff’s office said her family was able to positively identify Paola as the person in the images.
The sheriff’s office has acquired a Zistos Portable Underwater Video Camera System they planned to use in the latest search starting on Thursday.
“This equipment is high-intensity camera system with lights,” authorities said. “It has the capability to see into hard-to-reach areas that cannot be explored by standard scuba equipment.”
Paola was last seen on Dec. 17 when she had lunch with her mother, grandmother and uncle on Dec. 17, according to The Orlando Sentinel. The next day her family said she made a withdrawal from an ATM and then headed to the state park.
“After that she just vanished,” her sister Andrea Miranda said.
The family reported her missing on Dec. 19 after they were unable to reach her and later found her car parked at the state park on Tuesday Dec. 21, but there was no sign of Paola, local station WOFL reports.
“We immediately felt like something was wrong. It’s just not normal,” Andrea told the local station last month.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office and Osceola County Sheriff’s Office worked in conjunction to search the park using drones, boats, SCUBA drivers and bloodhounds from Dec. 21-23, but were unable to find any sign of the missing woman, The Orlando Sentinel reports.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office said in an earlier statement announcing the disappearance that Paola suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and had made threats to harm herself in the past, but did not make any statements of that kind before she disappeared.
Authorities have said they do not believe foul play is involved with the disappearance, the local paper reports.
The website of Wekiwa Springs State Park states that swimming and snorkeling is not permitted in the Wekiva River. In 2015, another woman swimming in the river in the park — despite signs telling visitors it was prohibited — was seriously injured in an alligator attack, the Orlando Sentinel reported at the time. Her story made national headlines and became the subject of an episode of Animal Planet's "I Was Prey" series. (The alligator was caught and euthanized by authorities shortly after the attack.)
Oxygen.com reached out to the department Friday to find out whether there had been any developments in the case, but did not receive an immediate response.
Anyone with information about the Paola or her current whereabouts is urged to contact authorities.
