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Re: Missing Student led double life as web porn star
EL DORADO, Kan. - A missing Kansas college student believed to be the victim of foul play apparently led a double life as an Internet porn star by the name of Zoey Zane.
Nude photos of 18-year-old Emily Sander appeared on a Zoey Zane Web site before she vanished, and investigators are looking into whether her modeling had anything to do with her disappearance last Friday.
'She enjoyed it. She is a young teenage girl and she wanted to be in the movies and enjoyed movies. She needed the extra money,' Nikki Watson, a close friend of Sander's at Butler Community College, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. 'Nobody in El Dorado knew besides her close friends.'
Sander's brother, Jacob Sander, confirmed that the nude woman pictured on the site is his sister.
El Dorado Police Chief Tom Boren said FBI and state experts on Internet crime have been called in.
'Involved in a Web site situation'
'Investigators are aware that Miss Sander was apparently involved in a Web site situation,' he said. 'Allegations that this may factor into her disappearance are being thoroughly investigated.'
Sander was last seen leaving a bar in El Dorado, about 30 miles from Wichita, with a man identified as Israel Mireles, 24, authorities said. Sander and Mireles had met that night at the bar, according to Watson.
After Mireles did not show up Saturday at his job at an Italian restaurant, his employer went to the motel room where he was staying.
'His motel room was found to appear in great disarray, and a large quantity of blood was found in the room,' Boren said. 'Bed clothing was found to be missing. The police were called.'
A nationwide manhunt was under way for Mireles and his 16-year-old girlfriend. A rental car he had been driving turned up Tuesday in Texas, where he had family. Those relatives have been interviewed, El Dorado Detective Justin Phillips said, but he declined to say whether they had seen Mireles or knew where he was.
On Tuesday, authorities released a photo of a white bedspread with a floral design and asked for the public's help in locating it. Divers searched a reservoir near El Dorado on Wednesday.
Diminishing hopes
'Our hopes kind of diminish each day we don't hear from her,' the police chief said.
Sander recently signed a contract for the pornographic work on the Web site, and told her parents about it on Thanksgiving, Watson said. Her boyfriend broke up with her because he did not approve, Watson said.
'What you are telling me now is things we have never been told or heard,' said Sander's grandmother, Shirley Sander. 'I don't know what to say. We have never heard anything like this, and truthfully, I don't believe it.'
Watson said she does not believe Sander's pornography work had anything to do with the disappearance.
'Nobody even knew about this until one of our close friends came out and told everybody because Emily did not want anybody to know,' Watson said.
The brown-haired, blue-eyed Sander was last seen wearing low-rider jeans and a 'Don't Mess With Texas' T-shirt. She has tattoos and body piercings.
Re: Missing Student led double life as web porn star
EL DORADO, Kan. (Nov. 29) -- Her fans knew her only as an Internet porn star named Zoey Zane. But in this small Kansas hamlet, Emily Sander's friends saw her as a vivacious teenager who worked hard days as a secretary at an electric company and went to night school to study business management. She dreamed one day of opening a piercing studio and becoming a movie director.
Authorities said Thursday the preliminary physical description of a body found about 50 miles east of El Dorado matches that of the missing 18-year-old. Investigators refused to give details about the state of the body or how it was found.
As news of the discovery spread, her friends comforted themselves with memories of a loving young woman who enjoyed cooking goulash and would give a ride to anybody who needed one.
"She was probably the most independent girl I know," said Nikki Watson, her close friend. "She was so anxious to get out on her own and make something of herself. She was ready to take on life."
Sander moved in with her boyfriend Michael McAllister when she was 17.
"It was probably the best time in my life," McAllister said Thursday.
He helped her finish high school, and she encouraged him in college. They bought pink and white Denver Bronco jerseys for themselves and their dog, Zan, that they wore on game days. She loved to dance to hip-hop music.
"She wanted to choreograph music videos. That is the only reason she did the Internet thing - to get a little exposure," McAllister said.
They broke up in September after she started posing for nude photos, he said.
Sander's case drew wide attention after it was revealed that she appeared nude on an adult Web site under the name Zoey Zane. That site was temporarily inaccessible Thursday, as were several sites that bill themselves as "fan" sites of Zane.
But Police Chief Tom Boren insisted Thursday that Sander's Internet activity had no connection to her disappearance.
"The issue of the Internet and the spinoff of that has been literally crippling our investigation," Boren said.
Boren said the cause of death was not yet known. An autopsy is planned.
Sander was last seen leaving an El Dorado bar Friday with a man who has been the focus of a nationwide search since police found large quantities of blood in a Kansas motel room where he was staying.
Prior to finding the body, investigators said they had not found a link between Sander and her activities as Zoey Zane. But publicity about her explicit photos brought a flood of tips, many of them false leads.
Sander, who attended Butler Community College, left the bar with Israel Mireles, 24. Authorities are looking for him and his 16-year-old pregnant girlfriend.
The rental car Mireles was driving was found abandoned Tuesday in Vernon, Texas, where he has relatives. Investigators interviewed family members and planned to bring the vehicle back to Kansas for processing.
"We feel they know where he is at, but they haven't shared that with us," Boren said.
On Thursday, searchers on foot and all-terrain vehicles were checking the tall grass along each side of Highway 54 near Neal, Kan., as they traced the route Mireles may have taken Saturday on the way to Baxter Springs to pick up his girlfriend.
Sander's grandmother, Shirley Sander, said the discovery of a body would "very definitely" bring closure to the family.
"We had to know one way or another," she said in a telephone interview.
