The Californian police force searching for a missing grandmother whose husband says she vanished 10 days ago in her bikini while they were out hiking has dismissed his hypothesis that she was abducted.
Barbara Thomas, 69, has not been seen since July 12 when she vanished in the Mojave Desert while hiking with her husband Robert.
He says she turned a corner while he stopped to take a photograph and simply disappeared.
Robert has also claimed that he was interviewed by police, failed a polygraph test about his wife’s disappearance and was told that he was ‘deceptive’.
He believes someone abducted his wife because she was in a bikini and carrying a beer, he said during an interview last week.
Barbara Thomas, 69, has not been seen since July 12 when she vanished in the Mojave Desert while hiking with her husband Robert. He said he lost sight of her when she turned a corner as he took a picture. Now, he thinks she had been abducted but police dismissed that theory on Monday
But as the search for Barbara entered its 10th day on Monday amid sweltering heat in the Californian and Arizona desert, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department dismissed the idea that she had been taken.
‘We don’t think she was abducted. It’s a very remote area. There’s no evidence to suggest she was abducted,’ spokeswoman Jodi Miller told DailyMail.com.
The notion that Barbara may have been abducted became public after a different hiker, Shirley Powell, who was missing for days in a different national park 300 miles away, was rescued. After being found, she described being chased by a knife-wielding man.
But sheriffs say it is unlikely the same man she described has gone after Barbara.
Rescue teams with dogs continue to search the Mojave Desert, where Barbara vanished, but the likelihood of finding her alive is decreasing
Police say the area where Barbara vanished is too remote for her to have been kidnapped
‘When that information started coming out about [the other woman], that’s what created the speculation [that Barbara had been abducted] but our investigation does not indicate any signs that she was abducted,’ Miller said.
When she vanished, Barbara was wearing just a black bikini (shown above), a red hat and hiking boots. Her husband said she was carrying a beer
As temperature soared to 100F over the weekend, dozens of searchers went out in the morning to try to find Barbara.
They have so far not found a trace of her.
With temperatures escalating, the chances of finding the woman alive are decreasing by the minute.
‘It’s our understanding that she didn’t have any water or any supplies or anything [on her]. Our hikers will continue to go out in the hopes of locating her, but you’re talking over a week now. It’s very difficult,’ she said.
She would not be drawn on Robert’s claims that he was made to take a polygraph test and told that he was ‘deceptive’, saying only that it was common practice in missing persons cases for relatives to be questioned.
‘In any missing person, you will ask and interview the family of that missing person as well as the last person last seen with that person,’ she said.
In Barbara’s case, her husband is both.
This map shows where the couple’s home is in Arizona, right. They hiked in the Mojave Desert in California (left) and now her husband believes she may be in Las Vegas
It is not clear how long Barbara and Robert have been married. They are not thought to have children togeter
‘That’s very, very common. You’re trying to find out as much information as you can,’ she added.
Miller would not confirm or deny his polygraph comments, but said: ‘If Mr Thomas chooses to [share that publicly], that’s his decision.’
Last week, Robert told Inside Edition: ‘The police consider me the prime suspect because it was just the two of us.’
When asked whether he took a lie detector test he confessed: ‘Yes, I took a polygraph test, they told me I was being deceptive. I know that polygraphs aren’t 100 per cent and I hadn’t had any sleep.’
Probed further on whether he had anything to do with Barbara’s disappearance he replied: ‘Absolutely not.’
He says the pair had just finished a two-mile hike and were on their way back to their trailer when he stopped to take a photograph.
He says he saw her turn a corner and expected to meet her back at the trailer but that he never saw her again.
”I hollered her name and I waved my arms, and I looked around the area and I saw that she wasn’t anywhere around. She didn’t respond. I got really panicky,’ Robert said.
‘I feel like someone did pick her up because she was wearing a bikini, she had a beer in her hand and she was ahead of me and she had to cross that road,’ he said.