The day Ivan Nunez turned 16 years old, he threw a party and invited family and friends to his house in the 500 block of West Hermosa Street. It was the day after Christmas. There was music and dancing in his backyard that evening and everyone was having a good time, except for Ivan. Without explanation, according to one female witness, Ivan went from being happy to “serious,” and abruptly went inside the house, never to be seen alive again.
Nearly two months later, Ivan’s body was discovered behind a barn less than 10 miles away near Nipomo. He had apparently hanged himself.
But Ivan’s parents refuse to believe it was a suicide. The investigation following his disappearance and death involved several officers from the Santa Maria Police Department and San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office and yielded no conclusive evidence to the contrary. Within a matter of months, the case was closed.
One year later, the family is still at a loss and isn’t satisfied with the police effort. Through a Public Records Act request, the Sun obtained more than 50 pages of missing person reports compiled by the Santa Maria Police Department after Ivan’s disappearance. Interviews and documents tell a mysterious tale of misinformation, false leads, and the grief of parents who are still struggling to understand what happened to their son.
The disappearance
The last time Gabriela Ordonez Nunez saw her son, he was in good spirits and dancing with a female neighbor. It was around midnight when he left, she reportedly told police. None of Ivan’s male friends were at the party, a police report noted, and all female witnesses interviewed by police back up Gabriela’s story.
Although he didn’t witness it himself, Ivan’s father, Francisco Nunez-Miranda, told the Sun that “100 percent” his niece told him she heard a knock on the door. She was sitting on the couch in the living room at the time. According to Francisco, his niece said she saw Ivan leave with the young man who knocked on the door.
When Ivan didn’t show up the next day, Gabriela became worried and flagged down a police officer to tell them that her son went missing.
The next evening, Gabriela went to police department headquarters and filed a missing person report. She told police that this is the first time he had ever disappeared and that she had no idea where he could’ve gone.
Police authorized a telephone ping on Ivan’s cellphone. They contacted Verizon Wireless, his cellphone carrier, but Ivan’s phone had been shut off since 2:16 a.m. on Dec. 27, 2015.
Before the phone was shut off, however, police traced its last location to a neighborhood in the city. The specific location was redacted in the reports. Officers knocked on doors in the immediate area, but no one was able to give them any information.
Police then requested Ivan’s cellphone records but weren’t successful. They needed the phone’s serial number to get the call history, but they didn’t have the phone. Police learned that the phone was given to Ivan as a Christmas present one day before he had gone missing.
Police searched Ivan’s room, but no evidence was found that could illuminate where he was or why he went missing. Nothing illegal was found either, nor was there evidence of any ties to street gangs. Still, Ivan’s wallet containing his Santa Maria High School ID was left on his bedside table.
Surveillance footage, suspicious vehicles
On the evening of Dec. 29, the police department received a call that a suspicious vehicle circled the block several times and was parked near the Nunezes’ house.
Neighbors told police they saw a brown Toyota Camry drive by Ivan’s house and pull into the church parking lot across the street. At first, police believed an old friend of Ivan’s had driven the car, but the friend told them he didn’t know Ivan’s whereabouts and hadn’t spoken to him in a week, according to the police report. The friend also mentioned that he didn’t have a driver’s license.
A surveillance video taken from a neighbor’s house corroborated the story, except the vehicle was different. The one in the video appeared to have all four hubcaps and didn’t have damage to the left rear bumper, like the friend’s car.
The neighbor later admitted to police that he followed the car, but lost track of it.
Francisco told police that he saw the Camry, too, with two Hispanic male occupants. He described the driver as a heavyset man and the passenger as “bald with tattoos,” and believed they were both gang members.
The car arrived between 1 and 2 p.m. on Dec. 29, according to reports, and the driver was pointing toward the house. It appeared that both men were searching the area for surveillance cameras, Francisco told police.
Ten minutes later, he saw a dark BMW SUV circling the area. It sat in the far north corner of the church parking lot for 10 minutes, while the occupants got out and also appeared to check for cameras, Francisco told the police.
Later that evening, at approximately 6:30 p.m., Francisco said the two vehicles returned and parked near the residence for nearly three hours, then left.
A surveillance video seemed to corroborate the father’s story. The report notes that at 10:41 p.m. on Dec. 26, around the same time Ivan went missing, a group of six individuals were seen waiting in the area of the Foursquare church across the street.
The “suspicious” SUV appears in the area, according to a police report, and is seen driving by several times. Police tried to get the license plate but weren’t able to because of poor video quality.
Police reviewed another surveillance video of Ivan’s house on the night of Dec. 26. It doesn’t show Ivan leaving, although the camera’s view didn’t cover the front of the house. Police officer Dave Culver noted in the report that anyone could’ve exited the front door and walked eastbound without being seen on camera.
Detectives tried to get information from Ivan’s Facebook profile, including messaging data, but had no luck. Facebook told them that Ivan hadn’t logged into his account for more than 30 days.
Gang connections?
Gabriela told police that her son was a good kid who wasn’t involved in gangs, but reports show he at least knew some alleged gang members. On Jan. 4, police contacted a female friend who was also at the party.
They asked her if the Northwest gang had a beef with Ivan, but she didn’t know. The officer asked her about involvement with the West Park gang in Santa Maria, but she couldn’t confirm anything, although she mentioned that she heard Ivan was “having problems” with them.
When police asked her if Ivan had enemies, she mentioned an incident roughly six months before where he was jumped by the “park,” a reference to the West Park street gang.
She didn’t witness the fight but referred to an eighth grader who did and said he was affiliated with West Park. In the report, she referred to Ivan as “little fuck boy.” When asked why he had that name, she told police that that was his reputation in middle school and didn’t provide any more information.
The parents told Santa Maria police officer Andrew Brice about a friend, who didn’t give the police any information on what he and Ivan did the last time they hung out.
Brice—a resource officer at Pioneer Valley High School—then conferred with a familiar associate of the Northwest gang. The associate told the detective that he’d hung out with Ivan several months ago and that they’d smoked marijuana together, but he didn’t know why Ivan would go missing.
Following that interview, Francisco told Brice about a strange Facebook post indicating that his son was at a house in Guadalupe.
The man behind the post told police he wrote it because he remembered a house where he believed his truck-driving instructor was buying drugs, according to a police report.
The next day, Francisco demanded that the police department investigate the house. He had received information via a text message, which read:
“FYI, someone posted they found phone in Guadalupe, the store with the house attached is a major cocaine operation, kids do party there on there birthday and peps from Santa Maria go there to score drugs, possible mafia cartel.”
Francisco told the Sun that when he showed up to the house at 6 a.m. on Jan. 6, he heard people screaming from inside, saying that one of them sounded like his son.
Police determined that its resident was an ex-convict currently on parole and decided to do a search of the house, but waited for backup.
On Jan. 7, several Santa Maria and Guadalupe police officers surrounded the home and made contact, only to find a man with his family inside. Police searched and interviewed all four people there, including two more men staying in a travel trailer in the backyard, but there was no sign of Ivan.
That same day, a Santa Maria Police Department records technician received a call from someone who noticed a strange post in the comments section of an online KSBY article.
“The kid was involved with a gang,” the post read. “#Youareasnitch. This is what you get dumb kids don’t join gangs that ended in the 90’s.”
The post was taken down a short time later and the person who typed it wasn’t identified, although their profile picture showed a man with small tattoos near his eyebrows, a police report noted.
The caller refused to identify herself but told police she later took Ivan’s picture to a psychic, who told her that he was near a beach or an ocean.
Guadalupe sighting
On Jan. 9, police investigated a possible sighting of Ivan, but it was hearsay once more. Police officer Sean Fuggs interviewed a male who said a friend of his saw Ivan walking northbound on Highway 1 between Guadalupe and Nipomo. When Fuggs questioned further, the person shut down and wouldn’t provide more information or tell Fuggs who his friend was.
“By the end of the conversation, [redacted] said he only wanted to call the police to direct our search efforts to the area of Nipomo,” Fuggs wrote in his report.
No further questions were asked.
Possible extortion plot
On Jan. 15, officers Zackary Robbins and Brian Santiago spoke to Gabriela, who told them that she was contacted by someone who she believed was trying to extort money from her for a second time. Similar to the first contact, which occurred on Jan. 8, the same man told her he had information on Ivan’s whereabouts but didn’t provide anything useful. Nevertheless, he asked for a reward.
Interviewed by the police with Gabriela present, the man presented a Facebook account of Ivan’s, but it appeared to be fake. It had a photo of Ivan used in recent news stories as well as several pictures, none of which included Ivan. Although he insisted the pictures indicated Ivan’s location, he couldn’t provide specific information.
Gabriela pressed the man how he found the Facebook account. He told her that his cousin hacked into it to get pictures but didn’t say who his cousin was. The man asked Gabriela where the first phone call came from, later adding he wasn’t familiar with it. But then he mentioned that the originating phone number used a service called IC Solutions.
IC Solutions is the service for inmate phones used in Santa Barbara County jails, according to the Sheriff’s Office website.
Robbins contacted the Sheriff’s Office, which confirmed that the phone call came from the jail. Using a PIN number, the call was traced to a specific inmate who had ties to the West Park gang, although investigators were unable to determine if the voice in the call was in fact the same person.
Ivan’s family confirmed to Robbins that they knew a 17-year-old boy with the same first name but didn’t know his last name.
False trails, cold leads
The parents’ frustration only got worse. On Jan. 25, police were called to the corner of Thornburg and Main streets regarding a possible sighting of Ivan inside of a burgundy Ford Explorer.
Gabriela reportedly received an anonymous call that her son was located at an address in Santa Maria and went there to investigate. Upon arrival, she told police, she witnessed a young man with a shaved head who was wearing sunglasses—a person she believed was her son—getting into the same Explorer. She attempted to follow it for several blocks to no avail, telling the police she believed the driver was intentionally evading her.
Officer Ernie Salinas knocked on the door of the house located at that address, but no one answered.
That morning, Gabriela told police someone placed a note in her mailbox telling her that Ivan was located “somewhere along the highway.” She passed along the information and demanded an update from police, but at the time, the police department was investigating seven homicides that occurred in the city within the span of one month. The first two murders occurred on Dec. 26—the same day Ivan went missing. The shootings happened just after 7 p.m., according to the police department, just four hours before Ivan left his home for the last time.
“I advised G. Nunez that I was going to do what I can to help her,” Salinas wrote in his report.
Police were investigating the possibility that Ivan was connected to the murders.
“That was a question [they] were looking to resolve throughout the investigation,” police department Sgt. Russ Mengel told the Sun. “It was an incredibly busy time, and it was a part of the ongoing effort at the time to locate him.”
Brice noted in an earlier report that the family didn’t turn over crucial information to the police on several occasions. But Francisco refutes this, instead saying that he didn’t believe that police were doing enough to find his son.
In March, before Ivan’s body was identified, his parents received a mysterious text message suggesting that he owed drug money to the Mexican Mafia, but that wasn’t substantiated.
The text also referenced two possible locations where his son could be—the now-shuttered Platinum Smoke Shop and Lounge on North Broadway and a locked, empty house located on Belmont Trail in the California Valley allegedly connected to the Mexican Mafia.
Gabriela received a second suspicious text message on March 3, which she relayed to police.
“If you take action these people will not leave without punishment,” the text reportedly read in Spanish. “[Redacted] are poisoning Santa Maria with their drugs.”
The text message contained a name alleged to be a part of the “Mexican Mafia family,” according to the report written by officer Roberto Ruiz. But police apparently didn’t act on this information, which only added to the grief of Ivan’s mother.
“If you, the police, don’t do anything to find my son Ivan, I am going to see the Sheriff of Santa Barbara County,” Gabriela reportedly told police. “I will bring attention to my situation with my entire family, friends present at the Sheriff’s Office, and inform every local news station of your incompetence.”
Suicide declaration
The investigation into Ivan’s disappearance ended with tragedy. On Feb. 17, SLO County Sheriff’s Office Detective-Coroner David Walker was called to Range Place, an inconspicuous dirt road filled with potholes just outside of Nipomo where a body was found behind a barn roughly 7 miles from the Nunez residence. It was Ivan.
Due to significant exposure to the environment, Walker stated in the report, the only way to identify the body was through DNA analysis.
In his report, Walker noted that Ivan appeared to have hanged himself. There was no sign of a struggle and CT scans of the body showed no broken bones or signs of trauma. Ivan was clothed in what he was wearing when he went missing—a gray hooded, long-sleeve, “Pro” brand sweatshirt; blue denim jeans; and Vans “Old Skool” shoes. Ivan’s hair was not unkempt, Walker noted—another sign there wasn’t a struggle.
The presence of blowflies indicated Ivan had been dead for at least a month, Walker noted.
On March 18, DNA samples came back confirming that it was Ivan. Toxicology reports showed he was clean of drugs. Based on the evidence, Walker determined that Ivan died from ligature hanging within a matter of minutes.
Francisco doesn’t believe this is the truth. He still has his son’s clothes, which he said have blood on them and isn’t consistent with a hanging. The coroner’s report doesn’t note any blood on Ivan’s clothes.
“Police said he killed himself, but he didn’t kill himself,” Francisco told the Sun through a translator, adding that he isn’t sure why he believes this. He fought back tears. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Rumors swirled that Ivan’s death was somehow connected to gangs, possibly even the work of Mexican drug cartels. But it doesn’t fit their modus operandi, according to Russell Kramer, the resident agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency in Ventura County, which covers Ventura, Santa Barbara, and SLO counties.
Drawing from only general knowledge, Kramer discounted cartel violence.
“They’ll leave bodies in the street, they’ll leave body parts in the street because they want people to see it and know,” Kramer told the Sun, adding that it sends a message. “I think it’s more likely that it’s gang violence than cartel violence.”
Case closed?
Yet, there is no evidence of any gang violence. Concluding his report, Walker wrote that he asked police officer Rudy Flores why he thought Ivan would take his own life.
Flores informed Walker that Ivan had recently been kicked off the baseball team because of marijuana use and dropping grades and that it, somehow, had affected Ivan.
However, earlier in the report, Walker stated that a resource officer at the high school told him that Ivan was merely placed on a probationary status and was allegedly going to be reinstated to the team, which Ivan was working toward.
School officials didn’t return phone calls from the Sun before press time.
A Santa Maria High School teacher—identified as Ivan’s computer lab teacher in a police report—interviewed on Jan. 7 told police about a conversation she had with Ivan about doing better in school. Ivan told her that he wanted to improve his grades and make his parents proud and was very emotional, but she had no idea why he’d go missing.
After completing a court-mandated teen rehabilitation program, Ivan told his mother that he’d stop doing drugs and would devote himself to becoming a professional baseball player. Overall, Gabriela noticed a positive change in her son but thought he was distant, and occasionally she caught him deep in thought. She’d ask if everything was OK, and he’d assure her that it was.
This is what saddens and frustrates Francisco so much. Things appeared to be looking up for Ivan following the court program. Thinking about what could’ve happened to his son doesn’t give Francisco any sense of relief, and he feels like the police didn’t do their jobs.
In the end, the police’s investigation didn’t bring any new answers, only more questions. Ivan’s parents claim there was no sign that he would have killed himself, yet the mysterious circumstances following his disappearance—the internet comments, the phone calls from jail, and the note in the mailbox—all came after he was reported missing by police and the news media.
Ivan would’ve turned 17 years old on Dec. 26, 2016. Instead, his family is remembering the time they were able to spend together before he perished.
Francisco wants people to remember that Ivan was a good kid and a really great baseball player. But most of all, he misses his son.
“All the time,” he said.
Staff Writer David Minsky can be reached at dminsky@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 9-16, 2017.