Latest / Best of: Features / Officials return to search for coffee shop owner Amy Hillyard after new details emerge

Transcript

Officials return to search for coffee shop owner Amy Hillyard after new details emerge · Best of: Features

• 0:05
  Officials return to search for coffee shop owner, Amy Hilliard, after new
• 0:09
  details emerge. Written by Madeline Medina. This article is being
• 0:15
  read by an automated voice generated by Everlett. Six months after Amy
• 0:20
  Hilliard disappeared from her Oakland home, investigators are preparing to launch a
• 0:25
  new search next week for the missing coffee shop owner as more
• 0:28
  clues emerge. Amy Hilliard, a co owner of Farley's coffee shops in
• 0:33
  Oakland and San Francisco, was last seen on march twenty fifth, around
• 0:36
  two PM near the five hundred block of Radner Road. Officials believe
• 0:40
  Hilliard, fifty two, left her house alone, without her phone and other
• 0:44
  belongings, on the day she disappeared, Steve Fisher, a private investigator hired
• 0:49
  by the Hilliard family, told SF Gate that over the past two
• 0:52
  days, investigators conducted a deep forensics dive of Amy's devices and apps.
• 0:58
  Investigators found that the day before Amy disappeared, Chrome browser data shows
• 1:03
  that she spent about thirty minutes looking at eight different hiking routes
• 1:07
  spanning from The Reinhardt Redwood Regional Park area in Oakland to Berkeley,
• 1:11
  Fisher said. Investigators were previously only aware of three routes which have
• 1:17
  been searched, leaving five more to search, according to Fischer A small
• 1:21
  team will search those hiking routes beginning Sunday, he said
• 1:24
  the routes are all about five miles from Amy's home, and she
• 1:28
  had previously hiked, all but one of them, according to Fisher. These
• 1:32
  are areas that were quite frankly not on our radar, Fischer said
• 1:36
  some of them are long trails. Some of these go up to
• 1:39
  like six and a half to seven miles. Fisher said the discovery
• 1:43
  makes sense, because Amy is a very avid hiker. Chris Hilliard, Amy's
• 1:47
  husband and the co owner of Farley's, also previously told the San
• 1:51
  Francisco Chronicle that his wife was recovering from depression and anxiety when
• 1:55
  she disappeared. Fisher said some of Amy's journal entries said hiking was
• 1:59
  one way she managed her anxiety. According to Bring Amy Home, a
• 2:04
  website created by the Hilliard family, search teams and loved ones have
• 2:08
  visited dozens of hiking trails, and looked through hours of surveillance footage,
• 2:12
  over the past several months, but have yet to find answers. Fisher
• 2:16
  said Amy's disappearance is among the most perplexing cases he has worked
• 2:20
  on, largely because she hasn't appeared on any video footage since she
• 2:24
  went missing. The only confirmed footage of Amy shows her leaving her
• 2:28
  home. Officials have been able to look through video from locations with
• 2:32
  long term security camera footage, such as banks and temples, but no
• 2:37
  one, has been able to spot her, he added. Investigators have also
• 2:40
  determined that video of a person previously believed to be Amy at
• 2:44
  Diamond Canyon Park was not her, Fisher said. This is a woman
• 2:48
  who walked away from a very populated area in Oakland, and most
• 2:52
  likely going towards the hiking trails. Even as investigator, it's so hard
• 2:56
  for me to wrap my head around this one, he said. This
• 2:59
  is not a case where she started at a trailhead in the
• 3:01
  wilderness. This is where she had to traverse through really populated area.
• 3:06
  While investigators believe that one of the more likely scenarios is that
• 3:10
  Amy disappeared while hiking, there is no guarantee she took any of
• 3:14
  the eight routes she searched online the day before, Fisher said. I
• 3:19
  think we will find than she was walking to clear her head
• 3:22
  and is out in the wilderness somewhere, he said. I really hope
• 3:25
  that it's a case where she decided to walk away from her
• 3:28
  life and start some new one, but at six months, it's so
• 3:31
  hard for somebody not to leave a digital footprint, whether they want
• 3:35
  to or not. Still, Fisher said it's not known where Amy went
• 3:39
  after leaving her home on March twenty fifth, and he asked anyone
• 3:43
  with information to come forward. Other that that, we can't say any
• 3:47
  of these theories are wrong, because we truly just don't know that
• 3:50
  happened her Fisher said. On Friday, her husband posted a video statement
• 3:55
  saying the family and investigators will continue looking for his wife by
• 3:59
  any means available. He said teams even recently used drones to survey
• 4:03
  some of Amy's favorite hiking spots. We all keep trying, and every
• 4:08
  day we wake up with a glimmer of hope that to day
• 4:11
  will the day that brings some piece of information that offers an
• 4:14
  answer to Amy's whereabouts, Chris said. The family is offering twenty five
• 4:19
  thousand dollars for anyone with information that leads to her safe return.
• 4:23
  She is one hundred and twenty pounds and five feet four inches
• 4:26
  tall with blonde hair and hazel eyes. She was last seen wearing
• 4:30
  a white short sleeved shirt, light jeans, and white sneakers. Amy is
• 4:35
  considered at risk because of a medical condition, and anyone with information
• 4:39
  is urged to call the Oakland Police Department's Missing Person Unit at
• 4:42
  five one zero two three eight three six four one. The Chronicle
• 4:47
  and SF Gate are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.