She walked away before sunrise. Then everything went silent.
For days, deputies and volunteers tore through fields and brush,
terrified by what they might find. When they returned to a lonely
stretch of tall grass near her home, something was different.
A body. A gun. Indicators of self-har… Continues…
Nineteen-year-old Camila Mendoza
Olmos had been seen on camera searching her car in the early hours,
then apparently leaving on foot, her vehicle still in the driveway.
Behind that quiet departure, investigators now believe,
was a storm no one fully saw: signs of depression, talk of self-harm
, the invisible weight so many young people carry alone
. When search teams circled back to the field just 100 yards from her northwest Bexar County home,
the tall grass hid what they had missed before. A body in familiar clothing. A firearm nearby.
Sheriff Javier Salazar chose his words carefully: no suspected foul play,
indicators of self-harm, a family and community left in limbo until the
medical examiner confirms what everyone fears.
The official answers will come,
but they cannot explain the ache of a life cut short,
or the haunting question of whether someone could have reached her in time.
