Nature-loving grandpa, 83, found dead in SoCal lake three days after vanishing on hike

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Key points

• Ramiro Herrera disappeared while visiting the Hansen Dam Recreation Area in Lake View Terrace.
• Then, three days after Herrera disappeared, a volunteer searching with the family discovered his body in Hansen Dam Lake.
• When Herrera didn't return by 3 p.m., his wife, Rosa Ohm, knew something was wrong.
• Herrera's stepdaughter, Gabby Conde of Chatsworth, remarked the family had been forced to take matters into their own hands as the search dragged on.
• Herrera went missing after he decided to take a walk around 1: 30 p.m.

For context, a grieving Los Angeles family notes they had to launch their own desperate search for their beloved 83-year-old grandfather who vanished at Hansen Dam – only to find him dead in the lake three days afterwards -no thanks to police.

His family informed the San Fernando Valley Sun that they organized their own daily search parties, starting with concerning 15 individuals on the first day and swelling to almost 100 by the third. Authorities, they remarked, provided little assistance.

Then, three days after Herrera disappeared, a volunteer searching with the family discovered his body in Hansen Dam Lake. The preliminary cause of death was accidental drowning.

"My mom thought the police were going to do more. She informed me, 'I can't believe we're the ones who identified him, '" Conde informed the Valley Sun. "We're all really disappointed that we didn't obtain the assist that we needed from the LAPD. If we had, maybe things would have turned out differently."

In practice, the grieving family is now planning a funeral in Monterey Park, close to the couple's East LA home, but they're additionally left with questions concerning whether extra measures by police could have changed anything.

"On that first day, I asked them, 'Well, can you send out dogs? Maybe if the dogs can pick up his scent, they can find him, '" Conde informed the newspaper. She remarked they informed her that wasn't an option to employ a K-9 unit for the search as "they didn't have the financial resources."

Herrera went missing after he decided to take a walk around 1: 30 p.m. On Sunday, Aug. 9.

That's when the family reached out to LAPD and filed a missing person report.

LAPD officers and park rangers then conducted a search around Hansen Dam Park, but according to Conde, it lasted just "about five minutes."

Meanwhile, Herrera's relatives and friends looked for him from the afternoon until 1 a.m.

"Within three hours of, the officers left us, " Ohm informed the news outlet. "And the park rangers kept telling us that wasn't in the park – that they had already done a thorough search."

I even asked, 'Are you leaving us here alone to fend for ourselves in this situation?'' continued Conde. And they replied, 'No, we're going to leave, but we'll look around to see if he's on the streets somewhere.'.

Notably, the family afterwards produced and handed out hundreds of missing person flyers on the second day Herrera was missing and posted information online. They received calls from two feasible eyewitnesses, both of whom stated they had seen someone who looked like Herrera by the lake and that he appeared to be injured.

Their accounts were similar to a tip Conde's son received the previous day from a homeless man whom Herrera had apparently asked to support find his wife after suffering a head injury.

Notably, the homeless man didn't find Ohm, but he did report the incident to a park ranger. This person afterwards followed him to look for Herrera but was unable to locate him.

For context, the family then requested extra searches, but Conde stated park rangers informed her they had already searched around the lake and hadn't seen anyone.

"I felt like they just didn't care, " she remarked concerning both the park rangers and LAPD officers. "One of the officers said, 'We looked for him in liquor stores.' But my dad didn't even drink!"

"He was such a sweet man, " continued Conde. "He was always really respectful and a man of his home. He loved his home and he additionally loved the outdoors. I informed my mom, it's such irony that he passed away that way, in the outdoors, in nature. It he always loved so much." LAPD did put out missing person and "silver" alerts for Herrera.

But the timeline of those alerts is unclear, according to previous reporting.

Conde remarked the family is considering asking for an investigation into whether park rangers and officers followed established protocols during the search. Herrera's family is additionally waiting for his full autopsy results.

Meanwhile, the California Post reached out to LAPD and park rangers for request for comment on whether enough was done to find Herrera, but did not hear back immediately.

For now, nature-loving grandpa, 83, found dead in SoCal lake three days after vanishing remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.