021 - The Abduction of Pearl Pinson

Trace Evidence

Steven Pacheco

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.7 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2017

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fifteen year old Pearl Pinson was a sweet, funny girl who loved skateboarding with her brother. On the morning of May 25th, 2016, she packed her black and turquoise backpack and headed off for her routine walk to school. Shortly after she left her home, around 7am, Police received multiple 911 calls reporting an incident involving an armed man and a young woman taking place on the pedestrian overpass at Interstate 780.

Witnesses reported seeing a latino man in a black hoodie and brandishing a firearm. The woman had dyed green hair, was bleeding from her mouth and was seen being shoved into the trunk of a gold, four door 1997 Saturn. When police arrived on the scene they found blood on the concrete and a cell phone which they were able to match to Pearl Pinson. Due to conflicts in eyewitness statements, an Amber Alert couldn’t be issued for nearly 32 hours, by which time Pearl had completely vanished into thin air.

When authorities caught up to her abductor, nineteen year old Fernando Castro, there was no trace of Pearl and before they could question Castro, he was fatally injured in a shootout with police. Castro died, and with him any information about why he abducted Pearl or where she could possibly be. Over the past year, multiple land and air searches have been conducted, but no sign of Pearl has been discovered. Multiple theories have arisen in that time, and the further investigators probe into her disappearance, the more complex and frustrating it becomes.

Was Pearl abducted due to issues between she and Castro or were they total strangers? Was Castro a violent gangmember with a drug problem or a typically kind man who suffered from a mental illness which overtook him? Or, did Castro abduct Pearl with the intention of selling her as a sex slave from which she is still trying to escape today? Join host Steven Pacheco as he examined the confusing details and chaotic accounts of what happened to Pearl Pinson that fateful Wednesday morning and asks the unanswerable question: Where is Pearl Pinson?

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Sources: https://www.trace-evidence.com/pearl-pinson

Transcript

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0:00.0	15-year-old Pearl Pinson lived in Vallejo, California with her parents, older sister, and
0:13.6	younger brother. She was a funny, outgoing girl who cared deeply for her family and was
0:19.3	protective of her friends. She was excited to finally be in high school, and in May of
0:25.0	2016, she was just a few weeks away from completing her freshman year. Part of Pearl's morning
0:31.5	routine involved a short walk from her home to Jesse Bethel High School, but on May 25, 2016,
0:39.2	she would never make it to school. Every day, Pearl used a pedestrian bridge which carries foot
0:45.5	traffic over I-780 on her way to school. On the morning she was abducted, Pearl would make it to
0:52.1	the bridge, but never across it. 911 calls began coming in, telling a horrifying story of a young
0:59.4	woman being attacked up on the bridge. Collars described a man, brandishing a handgun, had attacked her.
1:07.1	She was bleeding from her mouth, and when a good Samaritan tried to intervene, he found himself on
1:12.4	the other end of the attacker's gun. As witnesses scattered for cover, they heard a horrifying scream
1:19.2	followed by a single gunshot. Officers arrived on a confusing scene with blood stains on the side
1:26.0	walk and several eyewitnesses telling a similar but slightly different story. They quickly identified
1:32.4	the missing woman as 15-year-old Pearl Pinson. Eyewitness statements told the story of a violent
1:38.4	attack, and one witness saw Pearl being shoved into the trunk of a car along with her backpack.
1:44.8	This would be the last sighting of Pearl Pinson. Due to confusion in the statements and a lack
1:50.7	of description, police struggled to gather enough evidence to issue an amber alert. They were able
1:56.5	to discover the abductor was 19-year-old Fernando Castro, who lived in Pearl's neighborhood,
2:02.1	but who, according to all reports, didn't have any connection to her.
2:07.4	They issued an amber alert on his 1997 gold saturn the next day,
2:12.4	but vital hours had already been lost in the search for Pearl. The next day, surveillance cameras
2:18.5	captured Castro in several locations hundreds of miles away from the sight of the abduction.
	...

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