Search-and-rescue teams were combing the Willamette National Forest Wednesday for a 4-year-old girl and her grandparents who went missing earlier this week, officials said.
The girl, Zelda Sudhoff-Clements, and her grandparents, Sharon and Gregory Poitra, went to the forest looking for a Christmas tree on Monday, according to the Lane County Sheriff’s Office.
The three were reported missing after the girl’s mother went to pick her up at her grandparent’s home in Eugene and found no sign the group had returned from the forest.
Investigators don’t know which part of the forest the group was headed to, but cellphone signals indicated they were last in the area of Fall Creek.
The family was traveling in a white Toyota Matrix with Oregon license plate number 502 CWD.
The girl was described as a female with blonde hair and blue eyes. She is around 3 feet tall, weighing approximately 30 pounds and was last seen wearing a gray sweater, gray pants, and boots with owls on them.
Gregory Poitra was described as a 63-year-old male with brown hair. He is 6 feet 1 inch tall, weighing 190 pounds and was last seen wearing a gray jacket and blue jeans.
Sharon Poitra was described as a 61-year-old female with brown hair and green eyes. She is 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing 165 pounds and was last seen wearing a tan coat and tan boots.
Officials asked the public not to undertake their own search efforts due to cold temperatures and bad weather, but instead to relay any information about sightings of the family to the sheriff’s office.
