Actress Naya Rivera is missing and presumed dead today after her four-year-old son was found alone on a boat in California. The Glee st...
Actress Naya Rivera is missing and presumed dead today after her four-year-old son was found alone on a boat in California.
The Glee star and her son Josey rented a pontoon boat on Lake Piru on Wednesday afternoon, but three hours later another boater raised the alarm after seeing the vessel drifting and the child asleep on board.
Cops found Rivera's life vest on the boat and believe that 'she did go in the lake' to go swimming, acknowledging that 'this may well be a case of drowning' in a 'horrible accident'. Her car was found nearby.
Four-year-old Josey has told investigators that he climbed back on the boat and his mother did not, but the circumstances are unclear and cops say it is 'challenging' to interrogate a toddler. According to TMZ, the boy says his mother 'jumped in the water and didn't come back up'.
The Ventura County Sheriff's Department confirmed last night that the missing woman was 33-year-old Rivera, who starred in 113 episodes of the hit musical series from 2009 to 2015.
Divers and helicopters were scouring the reservoir until darkness fell but no trace of Rivera has been found and the search has now been halted until morning.
Actress Naya Rivera is presumed dead after her four-year-old son, Josey Hollis, was found alone in a boat on Lake Piru in California on Wednesday afternoon
The Glee star and her son Josey rented a pontoon boat on Lake Piru on Wednesday afternoon, but three hours later another boater raised the alarm
The scene of the search after a boater raised the alarm on Wednesday afternoon, telling authorities he had seen the four-year-old asleep on a drifting pontoon boat
Naya Rivera's car was found near the scene where she was reported missing on Wednesday when another boater raised the alarm after seeing her son asleep on a drifting pontoon boat
A helicopter carries out a search on Lake Piru on Wednesday, after Naya Rivera was reported missing at around 4pm
Naya Rivera in Glee (left) with Heather Morris and Diana Agron in 2009
This diagram shows where Naya Rivera and her son rented a boat on Lake Piru before the four-year-old was seen alone. The map in the top left shows the location of the lake in relation to Los Angeles where Rivera lives
Demi Lovato was among the celebrities to hold out hope last night, asking her 87million Instagram followers to 'pray for Naya Rivera to be found safe and sound'.
Rivera's former Glee co-star Heather Morris said: 'We need all the prayers we can get to bring our Naya back to us... we need your love and light.'
Glee cast member Harry Shum Jr, who played Mike Chang, simply wrote 'Praying', while Iqbal Theba (Principal Figgins) and Max Adler (David Karofsky) have also posted concerned messages on social media.
Rivera's ex-fiancee Big Sean signalled his concern this morning by liking a series of tweets praying for her safety and demanding that the search for her should continue.
Zack Teperman, a publicist who said Rivera was 'one of the first people I had the honor of working with', said he was 'in complete disbelief and shock right now'.
'Was just messaging Naya a few weeks back. This can't be true. Prayers for her little boy,' he said last night.
Officials told NBC Los Angeles that Rivera's disappearance was 'considered to be a horrible accident', saying there was no suspicion of foul play.
Authorities believe Rivera to be 'presumed drowned', according to Captain Eric Buschow, a spokesman for the Ventura County Sheriff's Office.
Reports say that some of Rivera's possessions including a purse, wallet and food were found on the boat. Another purse is said to have been left in Rivera's car, a Mercedes G-Wagon which was still in the parking lot.
A search and rescue dive team and a helicopter with a drone were both dispatched to the lake, around 60 miles north-west of downtown Los Angeles.
The search was suspended overnight but is due to continue 'at first light', authorities said last night.
Sheriff's office spokesman Buschow told reporters after darkness fell that Rivera and her son were seen going out on the lake at around 1pm.
'Approximately three hours after they left the dock another boater out on the lake discovered the boat drifting with the [son] on board asleep,' they said.
'So they contacted the rangers and began an investigation and we've been actively searching for the mother since that time. We have both aerial search going on and our dive team as well.
'Indications are that we believe she did go in the lake. At this point it's still a search and that's what we know up to this point.
'The [son] said that he had been swimming with his mother and that she got back in the boat and her mum didn't. 'We know that the [boy] had a life vest on, there was another adult life vest found on the boat. It's somewhat challenging interviewing a three-year-old.
'We're going on the belief that she did go in the water, and we've not been able to locate her. This may well be a case of drowning.'
Buschow said it was not known how deep the water was at the spot where Rivera went into the water or what kind of conditions they might have been facing.
Staff at the lake had also raised the alarm after Rivera failed to return the boat, it is believed.
'This is a big reservoir, it's deep, these kinds of things happen. We don't know all the circumstances. Investigators are working on that, getting as much information as possible,' he said.
The sheriff's office initially referred mistakenly to a three-year-old girl, but later clarified that the child is a four-year-old son.
Investigators have made contact with Rivera's family and said they were working to 'reunite' the toddler with relatives. It is not clear whether Rivera had driven from her LA home or was staying closer to the lake.
Naya Rivera is pictured left with her ex-partner Ryan Dorsey, the father of four-year-old Josey who was on the boat with Rivera when she went missing. She is seen right in a photo she recently posted on Twitter
Hoping: Demi Lovato shared a picture of a candle and wrote 'please pray for @nayarivera' on Instagram on Thursday
![Oh God! Iqbal Theba, who plays [Principal Figgins], also shared a concerned post](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/07/09/09/30564884-8505089-Oh_God_Iqbal_Theba_who_plays_Principal_Figgins_also_shared_a_con-m-99_1594284750912.jpg)
'Pray': Demi Lovato (right in the left-hand image) has led the stars posting messages for Naya Rivera (left). Iqbal Theba, who played Principal Figgins, also shared a concerned post
Helicopters were deployed to Lake Piru in Ventura County to search until darkness fell. The operation was subsequently paused until first light on Thursday
Authorities believe Rivera to be 'presumed drowned' and a search has been launched to locate her body
Police vehicles near the pontoon dock in Lake Piru where a search and rescue operation was underway last night
Police on a walkway at the scene where Naya Rivera and her son rented a boat around 1pm on Wednesday afternoon
Rivera had just taken to her social media on July 7, sharing a touching photo of her with her son, Josey Hollis. 'Just the two of us,' she said in the post. They are also pictured together right
Rivera is believed to be 'presumed drowned' and a search has been launched to locate her body. She is pictured left in May last year, and right when she was arrested on domestic battery charges in 2017. Charges against her were later dropped
Naya Rivera previously dated Big Sean (pictured together left in 2013), before they eventually broke off their engagement. She also dated Glee's Mark Salling (right) who killed himself in 2018 after pleading guilty to child pornography charges
Rivera had last posted on social media on July 7, sharing a touching photo of her with her so Josey. 'Just the two of us,' she wrote as a caption.
The actress starred in Glee from 2009 to 2015, playing high school cheerleader Santana Lopez for all six seasons of the popular series.
Naya welcomed son, Josey Hollis, with then-husband Ryan Dorsey in 2015. She called her young son 'my greatest success, and I will never do any better than him' in her 2016 memoir 'Sorry Not Sorry.'
Rivera and Hollis divorced in 2018, after Rivera had earlier applied to end the marriage in 2016 but the couple had initially reconciled.
On Thanksgiving weekend 2017, Rivera was arrested in West Virginia on suspicion of domestic battery against Dorsey. The Kanawha County Sheriff's Office said Dorsey later asked that Rivera not be prosecuted.
Dorsey, also an actor, has appeared on shows including Ray Donavan and Justified.
Former Glee co-star Matthew Morrison defended Rivera at the time of her arrest, saying she was a 'great mom'.
Before that, Rivera was engaged to rapper Big Sean but they broke off their marriage plans in 2014. Big Sean featured on Rivera's debut single 'Sorry', which was released in September 2013.
Rivera also dated co-star Mark Salling, who killed himself in 2018 after pleading guilty to child pornography charges.
In her memoir, the actress admitted that she was not surprised by his criminal record.
She wrote: 'I can’t say I was totally shocked. When Mark dumped me, I thought it was the worst thing ever, but can you imagine if that didn’t happen?... and I was laying there in bed when the battering ram came through the door?'.
The Glee cast had already been hit by tragedy in 2013, when Cory Monteith was found dead in a Canadian hotel room. A coroner's report blamed the 31-year-old's death on a fatal dose of heroin and alcohol.
Rivera later described Monteith's death as one of her toughest personal moments, saying in a 2016 interview that 'the Cory chapter really choked me up' when she was writing her memoir.
Born in 1987, Rivera began her acting career at just months old, starring as a baby in adverts for Kmart before landing a significant role as Hillary Winston on the CBS sitcom The Royal Family at the age of four.
After years spent playing guest roles and reoccurring TV parts Rivera secured her breakthrough role in Glee at the age of 22. The role earned her award nominations for numerous accolades.
During this time, in 2011, she signed to Columbia Records and launched a solo singing career, releasing a single with rapper Big Sean in 2013 - who she was then dating - titled Sorry.
Rivera made her first film debut as Vera in the horror film At the Devil's Door in 2014, then returned to TV to play the reoccurring role of Blanca on Devious Maids in 2015.
Lake Piru is a reservoir located in the Los Padres National Forest and Topatopa Mountains, created in 1955.
Lake Piru is a reservoir located in the Los Padres National Forest and Topatopa Mountains
Naya Rivera (left) with co-star Lea Michele in an episode of Glee which aired in March 2014
A search and rescue dive team and a helicopter with a drone have both been dispatched to the scene to assist in the search
Police vehicles at the scene of the search, which continued until darkness fell on Wednesday
A body had not been located as of last night and the search was suspended until first light on Thursday
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