California lake where Naya Rivera vanished is her ‘sanctuary’

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The search and rescue mission for Naya Rivera is now being considered a recovery operation, police said on Thursday, a day after she vanished from the California lake where she’d been boating with her four-year-old son. 

The 33-year-old actress – best known for her role in Glee – vanished on Wednesday while on Lake Piru with her four-year-old son Josey. 

Josey told police that she’d ‘jumped’ into the water to go swimming and never came back. He was found asleep on their drifting boat. 

As search and rescue teams searched the lake on Thursday, local sheriffs gave grim details about the lake. 

Ventura County Deputy Sheriff Chris Dyer said on Thursday that Lake Piru was a ‘sanctuary’ for Naya, she was familiar with the lake and has been going there for years. 

Initially, police had hoped to find the actress alive and were searching the expansive shoreline as well as in the water. 

Now though, they say the mission is a recovery operation. 

‘There’s no evidence of foul play at this point. This may well be a case of drowning,’ sheriff’s Capt. Eric Buschow  said. 

He said it was an employee who works at the boat shack who found the boat and the child in the north part of the lake. 

‘My indication is that the child was found sleeping on the boat,’ he said at a press conference near the lake Thursday. 

‘I’ve been told Naya Rivera has been coming here for years and she is familiar with the lake. This might be a little sanctuary for her, especially on a Wednesday – no one’s here on a Wednesday so it’s a good day to come. She rented the boat.’ 

Deputy Sheriff Dyer said all signs point to this being a horrible accident. 

‘There was no collision or signs of struggle,’ he said. ‘We are using our helicopters, we are using our dive teams, we are using sonar equipment and our unmanned aerial drone team.   

‘It’s extremely difficult to search this lake, it goes from depths of 40ft to 5ft. 

‘Visibility in the daytime is 8 to 10 inches. At nighttime it’s zero. Everywhere you see a buoy on the lake is a low part.

‘There’s full-grown trees and debris under the lake. It’s been a couple years since someone drowned here in Lake Piru, that an accident’s happened in the lake, but it has happened before,’ he said. 

He added that wind ‘plays a big part’ on the lake because it pushes debris around. 

‘This is also a dammed lake, so there is a drain that when open can pull things toward it too. There’s a lot of different variables here, it’s not like the ocean but there definitely is a life to the lake. 

‘It’s not just still or stagnant.

‘This is the third lake in a chain of lakes, there’s two other lakes in LA county and they spill into each other.  

‘They are connected with waterways, you have Lake Castaic and Lake Pyramid and Lake Piru, which is man made.’ 

Rivera had shared a poignant picture of herself and Josey just a day before her disappearance, with the caption ‘Just the two of us’, in a post which has since attracted an outpouring of sympathy and prayers. 

In recent weeks, her social media has been full of posts of the pair at home. Last week, she shared a selfie about appreciating life, writing: ‘no matter the year, circumstance, or strifes everyday you’re alive is a blessing. make the most of today and every day you are given. tomorrow is not promised.’  

Divers and helicopters were scouring the reservoir until darkness fell but no trace of Rivera has been found. 

On Thursday morning, they returned to the lake at daybreak. It is closed to the public while the search for her continues. The divers focused their search to the lake’s rocky shores.

At least eight other people have drowned in the lake since 1994, including a father who died in 2008 after saving his daughter who’d fallen in to the water. 

He was able to get her back onto their boat before it drifted away and he died. 

In a 1997 Los Angeles Times article, a lifeguard at the lake described how easy it is for inexperienced swimmers to get into trouble on the water. 

‘Someone will come to the beach, maybe wade out a little, step into a deeper hole or get picked up in a rip current and they begin to panic,’ Steve White, Ventura State Beach lifeguard supervisor, said.

The lake is more comparable to the ocean because it is so vast and deep, he said. 

It holds ‘deep columns of chilly water that can overwhelm people’, the report said. 

Some are holding out hope that Rivera will be found alive.  

Demi Lovato was among the celebrities to hold out hope last night, asking her 87million Instagram followers to ‘pray for Naya Rivera to be found safe and sound’. 

Rivera’s former Glee co-star Heather Morris said: ‘We need all the prayers we can get to bring our Naya back to us… we need your love and light.’ 

Glee cast member Harry Shum Jr, who played Mike Chang, simply wrote ‘Praying’, while Iqbal Theba (Principal Figgins) and Max Adler (David Karofsky) have also posted concerned messages on social media.

Rivera’s ex-fiancee Big Sean signalled his concern this morning by liking a series of tweets praying for her safety and demanding that the search for her should continue. 

Zack Teperman, a publicist who said Rivera was ‘one of the first people I had the honor of working with’, said he was ‘in complete disbelief and shock right now’. 

‘Was just messaging Naya a few weeks back. This can’t be true. Prayers for her little boy,’ he said last night.  

Officials told NBC Los Angeles that Rivera’s disappearance was ‘considered to be a horrible accident’, saying there was no suspicion of foul play. 

Authorities believe Rivera to be ‘presumed drowned,’ according to Captain Eric Buschow, a spokesman for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office. He told the Ventura County Star that authorities were searching for a body. 

Reports say that some of Rivera’s possessions including a purse, wallet and food were found on the boat. Another purse is said to have been left in Rivera’s car,  a Mercedes G-Wagon which was still in the parking lot.  

A search and rescue dive team and a helicopter with a drone were both dispatched to the lake, around 60 miles north-west of downtown Los Angeles. 

The search was suspended overnight but is due to continue ‘at first light’, authorities said last night. 

Eric Buschow, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, told reporters after darkness fell that Rivera and her son were seen going out on the lake at around 1pm. 

‘Approximately three hours after they left the dock another boater out on the lake discovered the boat drifting with the [son] on board asleep,’ they said. 

‘So they contacted the rangers and began an investigation and we’ve been actively searching for the mother since that time. We have both aerial search going on and our dive team as well.

‘Indications are that we believe she did go in the lake. At this point it’s still a search and that’s what we know up to this point.

‘The [son] said that he had been swimming with his mother and that she got back in the boat and her mum didn’t. ‘We know that the [boy] had a life vest on, there was another adult life vest found on the boat.  

‘You can imagine it’s somewhat challenging interviewing a three-year-old and getting those kinds of details. 

‘We’re going on the belief that she did go in the water, and we’ve not been able to locate her. This may well be a case of drowning.’

Buschow said it was not known how deep the water was at the spot where Rivera went into the water or what kind of conditions they might have been facing.  

‘This is a big reservoir, it’s deep, these kinds of things happen. We don’t know all the circumstances. Investigators are working on that, getting as much information as possible,’ he said. 

The sheriff’s office initially referred mistakenly to a three-year-old girl, but later clarified that the child is a four-year-old son.  

Investigators have made contact with Rivera’s family and said they were working to ‘reunite’ the toddler with relatives, which they have now done. 

It is not clear whether Rivera had driven from her LA home or was staying somewhere closer to the lake. 

Rivera had last posted on social media on July 7, sharing a touching photo of her with her so Josey. ‘Just the two of us,’ she wrote as a caption. 

The actress starred in Glee from 2009 to 2015, playing high school cheerleader Santana Lopez for all six seasons of the popular series. 

Naya welcomed son, Josey Hollis, with then-husband Ryan Dorsey in 2015. She called her young son ‘my greatest success, and I will never do any better than him’ in her 2016 memoir ‘Sorry Not Sorry.’ 

Rivera and Hollis divorced in 2018, after Rivera had earlier applied to end the marriage in 2016 but the couple had initially reconciled. 

On Thanksgiving weekend 2017, Rivera was arrested in West Virginia on suspicion of domestic battery against Dorsey.  The Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office said Dorsey later asked that Rivera not be prosecuted. 

Dorsey, also an actor, has appeared on shows including Ray Donavan and Justified. 

Former Glee co-star Matthew Morrison defended Rivera at the time of her arrest, saying she was a ‘great mom’. 

Before that, Rivera was engaged to rapper Big Sean but they broke off their marriage plans in 2014. Big Sean featured on Rivera’s debut single ‘Sorry’, which was released in September 2013. 

Rivera also dated co-star Mark Salling, who killed himself in 2018 after pleading guilty to child pornography charges. 

In her memoir, the actress admitted that she was not surprised by his criminal record.

She wrote: ‘I can’t say I was totally shocked. When Mark dumped me, I thought it was the worst thing ever, but can you imagine if that didn’t happen?… and I was laying there in bed when the battering ram came through the door?’.

The Glee cast had already been hit by tragedy in 2013, when Cory Monteith was found dead in a Canadian hotel room. A coroner’s report blamed the 31-year-old’s death on a fatal dose of heroin and alcohol.

Rivera later described Monteith’s death as one of her toughest personal moments, saying in a 2016 interview that ‘the Cory chapter really choked me up’ when she was writing her memoir.  

Born in 1987, Rivera began her acting career at just months old, starring as a baby in adverts for Kmart before landing a significant role as Hillary Winston on the CBS sitcom The Royal Family at the age of four.

After years spent playing guest roles and reoccurring TV parts Rivera secured her breakthrough role in Glee at the age of 22. The role earned her award nominations for numerous accolades.

During this time, in 2011, she signed to Columbia Records and launched a solo singing career, releasing a single with rapper Big Sean in 2013 – who she was then dating – titled Sorry.

Rivera made her first film debut as Vera in the horror film At the Devil’s Door in 2014, then returned to TV to play the reoccurring role of Blanca on Devious Maids in 2015.

Lake Piru is a reservoir located in the Los Padres National Forest and Topatopa Mountains, created in 1955.

The Glee Curse: How TV’s cheeriest show has been plagued by tragedy and scandal… including drug overdoses, paedophilia, suicide, domestic abuse and on-set bullying 

By Ciara Farmer for MailOnline 

While Glee was easily one of the cheeriest shows to ever grace television screens, behind-the-scenes a murky curse has long-prevailed among its troubled cast and crew. 

On Thursday, it was revealed that one of the show’s lead stars, Naya Rivera, who played Santana Lopez, was presumed dead after her son, four, was found alone in a pontoon boat on Lake Piru in California. 

The heartbreaking news comes among a string of heartbreaks and horrors surrounding the programme, including Cory Monteith’s accidental drug overdose in 2013, Naya’s ex-boyfriend Mark Salling’s conviction for possession of child pornography and subsequent suicide and recent rumours of unrest on-set. 

The programme ran for six seasons from 2009 to 2015 and throughout its time on air and the years following, trauma has reigned supreme – leading to claims of a ‘Glee Curse’.

NAYA RIVERA’S SUSPECTED DROWNING AND ARREST 

On Thursday 8 July it was revealed that Naya Rivera was missing and presumed dead today after her four-year-old son was found alone on a boat. The star and her son Josey rented a pontoon boat on Lake Piru on Wednesday, but three hours later another boater raised the alarm after seeing the vessel drifting and the child asleep on board.

Cops found Rivera’s life vest on the boat and believe that ‘she did go in the lake’ to go swimming, acknowledging that ‘this may well be a case of drowning’. Her car was reportedly found nearby.

Four-year-old Josey has told investigators that he got back on the boat and his mother did not, but the circumstances are unclear and cops say it is ‘challenging’ to interrogate a toddler.

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department confirmed last night that the missing woman was 33-year-old Rivera, who starred in 113 episodes of the hit musical series from 2009 to 2015. 

Divers and helicopters were scouring the reservoir until darkness fell but no trace of Rivera has been found and the search has been halted until first light.

Naya welcomed son, Josey Hollis, with then-husband Ryan Dorsey in 2015. She called her young son ‘my greatest success, and I will never do any better than him’ in her 2016 memoir ‘Sorry Not Sorry.’

Rivera and Hollis divorced in 2018, after Rivera had applied to end the marriage in 2016 but they had initially reconciled. On Thanksgiving weekend 2017, Rivera was arrested in West Virginia on suspicion of domestic battery against Dorsey. The Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office said Dorsey later asked that Rivera not be prosecuted.

CORY MONTEITH’S FATAL DRUG AND DRINK BATTLE 

In what was the start of the show’s behind-the-scenes demise, on 13 July 2013, Cory Monteith, who played Finn Hudson, was found dead of a drugs overdose aged 31 in his Vancouver hotel room, after taking a lethal combination of heroin and alcohol. Four months before his death he had completed a stint in rehab.   

Cory was dating Lea Michele at the time of his death. After news broke of his overdose, it was revealed that Lea rang his mother, hysterical and screaming: ‘Is it true?’ Following his passing, she released a statement.

Through her representative, the actress said: ‘Lea is deeply grateful for all the love and support she’s received from family, friends, and fans. Since Cory’s passing, Lea has been grieving alongside his family and making appropriate arrangements with them. They are supporting each other as they endure this profound loss together.’

Lea, who is expecting her first child with husband Zandy Reich, began dating Cory in 2012, and after his death, she said: ‘There was no greater man than Cory. So, for the time we spent together, I consider myself very lucky.’

Five years after his death, Cory’s mother Ann McGregor insisted her son had been on pain medication following dental work to cap his teeth in the weeks before his overdose and that he ‘never meant to die’. 

She said he had battled his fair share of demons from a young age, drinking and smoking marijuana from 13, and with two stints in rehab by the time he was 19. While he managed to get clean for a time, he fell back into bad habits when he went to Hollywood. 

Ann, who admitted her son began using drugs again in December 2012, seven months before his death, said: ‘He wasn’t ready for the Hollywood world. Drugs were his way of checking out’. After his death, she said: ‘I still can’t pick up the pieces. My world totally stopped. And I’m a different person than I was before.’

MARK SALLING’S HORRENDOUS CHILD PORN CONVICTION AND DEATH 

The most horrific of the show’s woes was undoubtedly Mark Salling’s 2015 arrest and subsequent conviction in 2017 for possession of more than 50,000 images and 600 videos which showed girls, some of whom as young as three, being raped. It was described as ‘the worst pornography collection the nation has seen’. 

Salling, who played Noah ‘Puck’ Puckerman on the show, had tried to conceal them by masking his IP address and storing them on an encrypted hard drive. They were revealed to police by an ex-girlfriend who he showed them to. She was sickened and notified authorities. In his plea deal, the extent of his collection was described in harrowing detail.

He was found dead from suicide by hanging on 30 January 2018 near his home in Sunland, Los Angeles. His death came shortly before his sentencing, which was due to take place on March 7. He had attempted suicide the previous year by slashing his wrists, after which he was treated for psychological problems.

Salling dated Naya from 2007 to 2010. In her 2016 memoir, Sorry Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes, and Growing Up, the actress admitted that she was not surprised by his horrendous convictions. 

She wrote: ‘I can’t say I was totally shocked. When Mark dumped me, I thought it was the worst thing ever, but can you imagine if that didn’t happen?…

‘And I was laying there in bed when the battering ram came through the door?’

Prior to his death, in January 2013, Salling’s ex-girlfriend Roxanne Gorzela accused him of sexual battery by forcing her to have unprotected sex without consent. He denied the charges and filed a countersuit for defamation. In March 2015, they out of court with judges ordering him to pay her $2.7million.

LEA MICHELE’S DRAMA BEHIND THE SCENES 

Lea Michele, who played Rachel Berry on the show, has been plagued with rumours in recent weeks, after a host of cast and crew members have come forth to accuse the leading lady of bullying on-set. 

Accusations of on-set bullying began with a tweet from Lea’s co-star Samantha Ware last month, accusing her of being rude to her on-set and behaving with ‘traumatic microaggressions’. 

Others then piled on to the actress with allegations of their own, including Heather Morris, Dabier Snell and Yvette Nicole Brown. Lea was subsequently dropped by her sponsor, HelloFresh. 

Morris, 33, who played cheerleader Brittany S. Pierce on the Ryan Murphy show, claims Michele was ‘very’ unpleasant to work with, saying: ‘Was she unpleasant to work with? Very much so; for Lea to treat others with the disrespect that she did for as long as she did, I believe she SHOULD be called out.’ 

Lea apologised and said she has ‘never judged others by their background or color of their skin.’ She also insisted she will learn from the mistakes she has made so she ‘can be a real role model for my child’ when she gives birth in a couple of months.  

Naya and Lea famously had on-set friction, with the former writing in her book: ‘One of the Glee writers once said that Lea and I were like two sides of the same battery and that about sums us up. We are both strong willed and competitive – not just with each other but with everyone – and that’s not a good mixture…

 ‘We’re all stressed, yes, but we’re all working toward the same goal, so laugh it off and keep it movin’. Lea was a lot more sensitive, though, and it seemed like she blamed me for anything and everything that went wrong.’ 

CREW MEMBERS’ PASSING: ‘WE’VE LOST ANOTHER ONE’ 

Between 2013 and 2014, the show saw three heartbreaking deaths. Three months after Cory’s 2013 death, assistant director Jim Fuller passed away in his sleep, from heart failure. 

In Season Four, a subtle shout-out was given to Jim, while Glee cinematographer Joaquin Sedillo wrote on Twitter after his death: ‘This is such sad news. Jim was such a great guy and was so good to me always.’ 

Then in 2014, the cast were left ‘devastated’ by the death of the production assistant Nancy Motes, the sister of Julia Roberts. Nancy died aged 37, after drowning in a bath on February 9, 2014. She was found surrounded by non-prescription and prescription pills, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner. 

She claimed in her suicide note that the actress was so cruel that she ‘drove me into the deepest depression I’ve ever been in’. She described the Oscar-winning star as a ‘so-called sibling’ who should get nothing if she died – except the memory that she pushed her over the edge.

In the handwritten note, which was used as evidence in court amid a legal battle over her estate, Nancy said that Roberts’ abuse had been so bad that ‘I burst into tears because I wake up’.

Following Nancy’s tragic death, fellow production assistant Cristina Lageman spoke to MailOnline about Jim’s death, Nancy’s suicide and the concerns over ‘a curse’ on the show’. 

Cristina said: ‘She was such a good friend to me. It’s just shocking. Yes, she had her own little struggles, but when we got together, we just bonded and she never let them get to her. It’s such a shock, what with Cory passing last year, then we had a crew member, Jim Fuller, die. Now we’ve got this hit and it’s almost too much.

‘Glee was like a family. We spent 12 hours a day together. We would refer to each other as The Glee Family. Colleagues have been posting on Facebook: ‘We’ve lost another one.’ 

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