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VIDEO: Family friend of murdered teen Sierra LaMar speaks after guilty verdict

Vince Cestone

FREMONT (KRON) — A day after the emotional guilty verdict, KRON4 spoke with a family friend of murdered Morgan Hill teenager Sierra LaMar.

“When I was in the courtroom, it was so overwhelming because we had waited so long for this point and then after we got what we wanted, it’s almost like, ‘Yeah, it’s great,’ but then we’re back to the reality of — we still don’t have our baby,” Joanna Isom said.


Isom isn’t confident convicted murderer Garcia-Torres will ever reveal where LaMar is.

“If he was any kind of human being, he would,” Isom said. “But, you have to consider what he did. He might not have it in him.”

Sierra was last seen five years ago in Morgan Hill, and that community has spent the years since her disappearance searching for her.

But Isom says she’ll remember Sierra most as a cheerleader at Washington High School in Fremont.

Sierra grew up in Fremont, and she was close friends with Joanna’s oldest daughter Alexia and younger daughter Tatianna.

Joanna says Sierra was one of a kind.

“She was just absolutely breathtaking,” Isom said. “I don’t care who you were, parent, kid or whatever, she was just beautiful and the pictures don’t do her justice. I mean, you just can’t capture that. She was mesmerizing.”

So much so that Joanna’s 4-year-old son at the time of Sierra’s disappearance proposed to her.

And he wore a shirt on searches for her body which reads, “Help me find my girlfriend Sierra LaMar.”

“Yeah, he was absolutely in love,” Isom said. “You’d think he saw some celebrity when he saw her. It’s crazy.”

Joanna says the guilty verdict is bittersweet and hasn’t taken the pain of losing Sierra away.

“She lost her life and his family lost him too. You know, and it’s just sad all the way around,” Isom said. “It’s just, you know, as a human, it’s just hard to comprehend it all.”

Garcia-Torres’ sentencing is scheduled for Tuesday.WHAT OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON:

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