In newly released footage by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, Naya Rivera can be seen arriving at Lake Piru with her young son.
“This is the security camera footage from the Lake Piru boat launch when Rivera and her son rented a pontoon boat on Lake Piru,” a tweet Thursday night read.
In the video, Rivera and her son Josey can be seen pulling into the parking lot at the lake. The actress parked her SUV and walked to the dock with Josey trailing behind her. About 11 minutes into the video, one of the pontoon boats can be seen pulling away from the dock and heading out onto the lake.
Authorities say Rivera and her son departed from the dock around 1:00 p.m. Wednesday afternoon. She was swimming with her 4-year-old son when, for unknown reasons, she submerged and did not resurface.
On Thursday, the search and rescue operation shifted to a recovery one, with a Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson saying, “We believe a tragic accident happened and she may have lost her life in the lake.”
In a press conference later in the day on Thursday, Kevin Donoghue, sergeant at the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, said that Naya Rivera’s 4-year-old son, who was found alone on the boat in the middle of the lake, told investigators enough information that made them “conclude that his mother never made it out of the water.”
The 911 call of Naya's son being found has been released by the sheriff's department. “The emergency is we have a missing person,” a caller reported to 911 around 4:40 p.m., the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said, according to FOX 11 in Los Angeles. “We found a little girl in one of the boats by the south end (of Lake Piru) but her mom's nowhere to be found.”
She said she hadn’t seen the child who her husband found sleeping in the boat. The child turned out to be Rivera’s son, Josey, who has long hair.
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