A vigil was held Thursday to remind people a Vallejo teen is still missing a year after she was kidnapped.
Pearl Pinson, who was 15 at the time, was kidnapped while walking home from school on May 25, 2016. The suspected kidnapper, Fernando Castro, was shot and killed by police the next day in the town of Solvang in Santa Barbara County. But there's been no sign of Pearl.
"I'm heartbroken. I'm sad. I'm upset," the missing teen's sister, Rose Pinson, said of what she is feeling on the one-year anniversary of Pearl's abduction. "I need to know where she's at -- where he took her."
Castro, 19, was someone she knew. A witness reported seeing a man with a gun pulling a female, who was bleeding and yelling for help, on the overpass. Responding deputies found blood on the ground, sheriff's officials said.
Pearl's family made banners for Thursday's community vigil. The family does not want people to forget about the missing teen and said their pain has not faded.
"We need closure on this," Rose Pinson said. "We just need her home. We need some peace in our minds, in our souls.
Pearl is 5 feet, 3 inches tall, weighs about 130 pounds and has brown hair dyed green and green eyes. She has a metal piercing below her lower lip.
