Police Divers Find Body of Missing Colorado Woman Vanished in Malibu

Jennifer Michelle Lorber, 30, was missing since May 23, 2019, after arriving in Los Angeles from Colorado. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

Los Angeles police said they have found the remains of a Colorado woman last seen in Malibu last week and reported missing.

Divers with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office said they found a female body during a search on the morning of Thursday, May 30. The remains were located about 225 yards away from the Malibu shoreline.

“The remains were recovered by ESD Divers and transported to the Marina Del Rey Sheriff’s Station boating dock, where they were met by the case detectives,” the LACSO said.

A family member of the missing woman then confirmed the identity of the remains as belonging to 30-year-old Jennifer Michelle Lorber.

The Search

Police announced in a May 26 statement that they were looking for Lorber after she was reported missing. Lorber vanished after arriving in California from Colorado. She was last contacted at 11 p.m. on May 23.

Authorities said she was driving a rental vehicle, a 2018 White Toyota Rav4, which was found near the highway around 1 a.m., reported ABC News.

According to the news outlet, witnesses had seen her at the motel near where the rental car was found. Police said her family was concerned for her wellbeing and that she suffered from depression.

Someone set up a missing person page for Lorber on Facebook, posting regular updates on the search.

“Please continue urging people to share and like the page,” the page admin wrote on May 29. “Police are continuing their search but we need more attention. Share to media and celebrities, do whatever you can to put it in front of people. Thank you again.”

At one point the county issued a $10,000 reward for information on Lorber’s whereabouts.

The police continue to investigate the circumstances of Lorber’s disappearance and death.

They have asked anyone with information about the case to come forward.

Missing Person Reports Drop to Lowest in Decades

According to FBI data, reports of missing persons, especially missing children reports, decreased in 2018—the lowest shown in available records going as far back as 1990, as previously reported by The Epoch Times.

Nearly 613,000 Americans were reported missing in 2018, more than 424,000 of them were under the age of 18, an almost 6 and 9 percent fall respectively from 2017.

The data also shows an obvious steep fall between 1997 to 2013, where more than 980,000 missing reports in 1997 fell to less than 628,000 in 2013, before picking up again and once again falling in 2018. There has not been a clear explanation for the latest fall in reports.

Robert Lowery, vice president for the missing children division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, surmised that the downward trend may have to do with technology.

Most of the missing children are runaways between 13 and 17, Lowery told The Epoch Times in a previous interview.

“A lot of these children now have, frankly, cellphones or smartphones. They’re also using social media. … The point being that parents are able to find their children themselves much quicker than they had been, before they have to engage law enforcement,” Lowery said.

He added that the improvement of law enforcement investigative techniques to locate missing children could have contributed to the drop. But that doesn’t quite explain the sudden drop in 2018. Smartphones and social media have been popular among youth for more than a decade and there seems to be no indication that law enforcement techniques made a sudden advance in 2018.

“It may have been an anomaly,” Lowery said. “We’re going to continue to watch the trend.”

Petr Svab contributed to this report.