It was a Sunday night and a young couple were sitting together in a car at a park near Los Angeles. What happened next was something straight out of a horror movie – except this was real life. A gunman suddenly opened fire on the couple before pulling 19-year-old Andrea Vazquez from the car. Vazquez’s boyfriend escaped the gunfire but returned to the vehicle to find she had been kidnapped. After an intensive one-day search, the harrowing incident culminated in despair as Vazquez’s body was found in a field and a suspect – who has no known connection to the couple – was arrested for her murder. Heartbroken relatives described Vazquez as a “beautiful person” as they have been left struggling to understand what happened and why. Here’s everything we know so far about her abduction and death: A chilling abduction The horror unfolded just after midnight on Sunday 20 August when Vazquez and her boyfriend were sitting in a car at Penn Park in Whittier, police said. Her boyfriend told police that an armed suspect then approached their vehicle and “fired a weapon in their direction,” police said. Vazquez’s boyfriend fled the scene and when he returned he discovered blood near his car and his girlfriend missing. Vazquez has been kidnapped from the scene. Officers were alerted to a shooting and kidnapping incident located at the “parking stalls area” at 13950 Penn Street in Whittier. In a statement following her kidnapping, police said that Vazquez was last seen wearing a black long-sleeve crop top, khaki pants, and black low-top Converse shoes. “She has a tattoo of ‘Edlyn’ on the back of the neck, Aries constellation on the top of her right hand and a belly button piercing,” the statement read. Vasquez’s sister, Edlyn, with whom she lives in Los Angeles, put out a plea on Facebook for the public’s help in finding her. “My sister was shot and kidnapped at Penn Park,” she wrote. “Her last location shows Moreno Valley. We don’t know her condition. Please I am begging, if anyone has information, or the heart to share this, please please contact me and repost.” Another relative Emily Martinez told Fox News Digital that Vasquez’s phone last pinged in the Moreno Valley area. “We’re scared for her, but I’m hopeful, very hopeful that we’ll find her,” she said. “We just want to know she’s OK.” Tragic discovery Following the horror kidnapping, a huge search was launched to try to find the missing 19-year-old. That search ended in tragedy on Monday 21 August when, at around 11.50pm local time, authorities combing the area of Moreno Valley made a gruesome discovery. Police said that the teen’s body had been found in a vegetation field off Alessandro Boulevard and Merwin Street in Moreno Valley. It is currently unclear how she died or the nature of the scene where her body was found. The investigation remains ongoing but police said that it appears that the attack on Vazquez and her boyfriend was “randomly targeted”. The ‘random’ suspect On Tuesday 22 August, police announced an update on the case as a suspect was taken into custody. Detectives from the Whittier Police Department and the LADA Community Violence Reduction Team arrested Gabriel Esparza, a 20-year-old man and Whittier resident, in connection with the kidnapping and shooting of Vazquez. Mr Esparza was taken into custody at his workplace in the city of Lakewood and booked into the Whittier Police Department jail on charges of murder and kidnapping. He is being held without bail. During his arrest, officers recovered a weapon and Esparza’s White Toyota Tacoma truck – which are believed to have been used at the time of the shooting. “This relentless investigation and yesterday’s arrest were made possible by the dedication and commitment of our investigations division, with the assistance of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Downey Police Department, La Habra Police Department and the LADA Investigations Bureau Community Violence Reduction Team,” police said in a statement. The case will be presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office on Wednesday 23 August. Suspect pleads not guilty in first court appearance Gabriel Sean Esparza, the 20-year-old son of a Los Angeles County fire captain, has been charged with multiple felonies including murder, kidnapping and attempted rape of 19-year-old Andrea Vazquez. Mr Esparza entered a not-guilty plea when he made his first court appearance for the brutal slaying on Wednesday afternoon. Prosecutors have formally filed seven charges against the suspect, according to a criminal complaint submitted in Los Angeles Superior Court. These also include attempted murder, kidnapping to commit another crime, assault with intent to commit a felony, and two counts of attempted forcible rape. Tributes pour in Vasquez attended Fullerton College and was a fashion design student as well as an employee at a shopping mall in Cerritos. Ms Martinez told Fox News Digital before her body was found that the 19-year-old had also been working with her sister Edlyn, who is a lash artist. She described Vazquez as the “funniest person ever” and a “beautiful person” who was liked by everyone who met her. Read More Andrea Vazquez – latest: Gabriel Esparza arrested for murder after kidnapping teen on date with boyfriend Andrea Vazquez: California woman shot and kidnapped from boyfriend’s car found dead

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West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin on Sunday refused to say whether he would rule out the possibility of accepting a position on a third-party presidential ticket which most analysts say would serve only to help Donald Trump win a second term in the White House. Mr Manchin, a centrist Democrat whose state overwhelmingly voted for Mr Trump in the 2020 election, is considered one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators and would face a strong GOP challenge if he runs for another term in the upper chamber next year. He has also refused to say whether he harbours presidential ambitions at the same time that No Labels, a centrist group backed by GOP donor Harlan Crow, among others, is making efforts to gain ballot access for a third-party ballot line in next year’s general election. The group has suggested they would only run a ticket in next year’s election if the two major parties run “extreme” candidates who leave the broader US electorate wanting a third, more moderate choice. Mr Manchin has been floated as a candidate by some people close to that effort. The Mountain State Democrat has often made a point of taking disagreements with President Joe Biden and the current administration public as a way of highlighting his independence from the Democratic Party at a time when his home state has become increasingly hostile to Democrats. While he has previously said he’d win “any” race he enters next year, he has not yet formally announced a re-election bid, either. He declined to do so once more during a 4 June appearance on Face the Nation, the weekly public affairs show on CBS, moments after he declined to endorse Mr Biden for reelection. Mr Manchin told Brennan he was “not involved in the political process right now”. “Everyone thinks about politics first. I don’t. It’s not about the politics. It’s not about my re-election or anyone else. We have an awful lot of work to do,” he said. “We still have permitting to get done, we have geopolitical unrest around the world. We have to support Ukraine. We have to make sure that we get our financial house in order and get inflation down ... but if you throw politics in, I will guarantee you, you won’t get any decisions on any of that”. Asked whether he was still considering a presidential run, he replied: “Everything’s open. Everything’s on the table and nothing off the table”. He also declined to take himself out of the running for the hypothetical No Labels ticket during an appearance that same day on Fox News Sunday. Asked about the possibility of a third-party or independent bid by host Shannon Bream, Mr Manchin said he was “not ruling anything in, not ruling anything out”. “You better have Plan B. because if Plan A shows that we’re going to the far reaches of both sides, the far left and the far right, and that people don’t want to go to the far left and the far right, they want to be governed from the middle. I think there is, that you better have that Plan B available and ready to go,” he said. Read More Maybe, just maybe, ‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden is good at this bipartisan negotiation stuff Senate passes debt limit bill after marathon 11 amendment votes to avoid default Bernie Sanders was right about the debt limit all along. We know who got us into this mess Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement

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