NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Nevada authorities on Friday announced that they have a suspect in custody connected to missing 18-year-old Naomi Irion‘s alleged abduction.
The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) and other law enforcement agencies were still “actively searching for Naomi” as of Friday afternoon.
Irion was last seen in a Walmart parking lot in Fernley, Nevada, after 5 a.m. on March 12. It was where she typically parked her car and took an employee bus to her job manufacturing batteries at a Panasonic factory. The FBI said she was “abducted” from the parking lot “by a nondescript male.”
Naomi Irion
(Irion family)
Casey Valley, Irion’s older brother, told Fox News Digital that he doesn’t “know anything more about the suspect” than anyone else.
LCSO had been searching for a Chevy pickup truck they believed was involved in Irion’s kidnapping. On Friday, the sheriff’s office said they had recovered an impounded pickup truck “that was possibly involved.”
Naomi Irion kidnapping suspect’s vehicle (Lyon County Sheriff)
(Lyon County Sheriff)
A group of volunteers will gather Saturday at Love’s Travel Stop in Fernley to help search for signs of Irion.
The search “is still on” until her family gets “something concrete,” Valley said.
Security camera footage released by the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office Tuesday shows a potential suspect in her kidnapping. The man wearing jeans and a gray, hooded sweatshirt can be seen walking from a nearby homeless camp into the Walmart parking lot. Authorities said in a March 15 Facebook post that the suspect got into the driver’s seat of Irion’s vehicle and left in an “unknown direction with Naomi in the passenger seat.”
Seucirty footage on day Naomi Irion was last seen. (Lyon County Sheriff)
The suspect could be seen in the footage “walking directly in front of vehicles and their headlights.”
Deputies located Irion’s vehicle — a four-door sedan — in Fernley on March 15, two days after she was reported missing. Evidence authorities found in her abandoned vehicle suggested that her disappearance was criminal in nature.
Naomi Irion kidnapping suspect (Lyon County Sheriff)
MISSING NAOMI IRION’S FAMILY TRAVELS FROM SOUTH AFRICA TO NEVADA TO ASSIST WITH SEARCH
Irion moved from South Africa to Nevada, where she was living with Valley, in August 2021.
Naomi’s father, Herve Irion, and mother are in South Africa but traveled to Nevada this week to assist with the search for their daughter. Herve Irion works for the U.S. State Department in the foreign service. The Irions have lived in a number of foreign countries, including Germany and Russia.
Noami Irion and her sister (Credit: Irion family)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The Lyon Sheriff’s office is asking anyone with information about Irion’s whereabouts to call 775-463-6620 or email detective@lyon-county.org.
The Irion family is accepting donations that will go toward the search for Naomi through a GoFundMe page and Findingkids.org, a nonprofit helping people for private investigations. Her family is asking the public to mention Naomi Irion in their donations.
