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Leisa Hurst

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Another search for missing mother planned for Saturday

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Organizers focusing on east side of Mojave River in Adelanto

March 23, 2009 3:00 PM

By CHARLES NGUYEN, staff writer

Volunteers are narrowing the search area they believe is the location of a missing single mother and will host another large-scale search on Saturday in the hopes of recovering her body.

The search party will concentrate on an area in Adelanto split by the Mojave River, after organizers eliminated previously searched areas and used cell phone data to narrow the search grid, according to Loren Brewster, uncle of Leisa Hurst, a Barstow resident who was reported missing in January and is presumed dead.

“We have been having small searches almost every weekend to help prepare for the large ones,” Brewster stated via e-mail.

Data obtained from cell phone carriers and Barstow Police detectives have helped organizers narrow the area they believe were where Hurst placed her last calls before she disappeared, according to Mike Melson, founder of Trinity Search and Recovery, which is hosting the large-scale search.

Investigators initially reported a call placed in Hesperia from Hurst’s cell phone the night of her disappearance in January but did not provide further details on that call. Barstow Police Det. Keith Libby could not be reached for comment Monday.

A Feb. 21 search on the east side of the river attracted more than 200 attendees but turned up nothing, so volunteers will spend Saturday searching the river’s west side, according to Melson.

“We get to zero in on where Leisa could be with every search even if we don’t find anything,” he said.

The case is also garnering attention from television outlets. A film crew from “The First 48” will be attending the Saturday search to record material for the crime procedural reality show on A&E, according to Brewster.

Hurst, a 30-year-old mother of two girls, was reported missing on Jan. 22. In February, detectives arrested her alleged boyfriend, Jeami Chiapulis, 36, and charged him with her murder. He pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Tuesday.

Those interested in participating in the search are asked to register online at trinitysearch.org. The meeting location will be announced later this week, Melson said.

CONTACT THE WRITER:
(760) 256-4126 or cnguyen@desertdispatch.com

Search for Leisa Hurst
Date:     Saturday, March 28
Time:     8 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Area:     Adelanto
Meet at: Command Post (Location TBD)
Needs:     ATVs, horses, foot searchers

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highdesertslim

7:36 AM on March 24, 2009

8:28 PM on March 25, 2009

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore ecoladybug. Show Details Hide Details

Barstowjohn; See the below Desert Dispatch article 6th paragraph.

BARSTOW — The jury brought in a guilty verdict after deliberating less than three hours in the murder trial of Steven Rodriguez Dado in Barstow Superior Court Tuesday.

Jurors returned to the court room with verdicts of guilty to both charges, first-degree murder and robbery with special circumstances, in the murder of Tatsat Patel in July 1998.

Dado, 21, sat in court with his head hung down as the clerk read the verdicts. Superior Court Judge Thomas Glasser scheduled his sentencing for March 21. The sentence for the special circumstance of murder during a robbery is life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Dado left the courtroom to the sound of grieving relations in the audience.

“At least now we know who killed my son,” said Patel's father, Hasmukh "Smokey" Patel, after the verdict was pronounced.

Barstow police detectives found Patel’s body in a shallow grave in Newberry Springs the day after Patel was reported missing by his father. Patel and Dado had been target shooting in the remote desert area north of Idaho Trails. Patel was shot twice.

A conversation with Dado’s mother and a traced phone call led police to Tacoma, Wash., where Dado was arrested by local sheriff's deputies. He had the key to Patel's car, a 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse, in his pocket.

Dado's defense attorney, Teresa Snodgrass of Rancho Cucamonga, is a member of the Special Circumstances unit of the San Bernardino County Public Defenders Office. She is appointed when a defendant is subject to the death penalty. She argued that Dado did not premeditate the crime. The two were friends before the crime took place. The shooting was a marijuana-induced accident, and subsequent events — the second shot, the burial, and the flight to Washington state — were the result of a panic reaction. The appropriate charge would be involuntary manslaughter, she said.

After the trial, Deputy District Attorney Steve Sinfield expressed satisfaction with the verdict. The most damning piece of evidence against Dado’s defense was the testimony of Dado’s cousin, Cassie Venus, he said.

It was established during the trial that Patel offered to lend Dado his car while Patel traveled to England later that summer. Patel changed his mind, rescinding the offer, Sinfield said.

Venus testified that she had talked with Dado about two weeks before the murder. Dado told her Patel had changed his mind about lending the car. She testified that Dado told her he would “take it anyway, and then change registration in Washington (state).” This testimony established both a motive for the murder and premeditation of the crime, Sinfield said.

“We can’t believe how friend can kill friend for material things,” Hasmukh Patel said.

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thelma443

7:21 AM on March 27, 2009

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I pray they find Leisa this time! Please everyone pray as well...Debbi and her family need some closure to move forward in life. Leisa will always be part of our lives.