Sheriffs release CCTV footage of Naya Rivera and her son Josey boarding boat

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Authorities searching for Glee star Naya Rivera have released CCTV footage of the actress and her four-year-old son Josey arriving at Lake Piru and boarding their pontoon boat hours before she disappeared.  

In a video released by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday, Rivera is seen pulling up to the dock in her Mercedes-Benz SUV on Wednesday afternoon, before hopping on a rental boat with the boy and heading out into the lake.

She was declared missing hours later, and is now presumed dead, after Josey was found asleep and alone on the vessel with her life vest on board. The boy told authorities his mother went swimming in the lake and never made it out of the water.  

Footage from the scene also showed a jetski cruising by Rivera’s boat which some have suggested could hold clues to her disappearance. Members of the public are now urging police to find the jetskiiers in hopes they may have any information on the star’s final moments. 

The search for Rivera was suspended for a second night running after darkness fell on Thursday night, with no sign of a body so far. The search will continue Friday morning as a ‘recovery operation’ now that investigators believe Rivera drowned in ‘what appears to be a tragic accident’.    

Divers say the waters are murky and full of plants and debris, limiting their visibility to less than one foot and forcing them to use their hands in what one rescuer described as a ‘braille search’. Cops warn that Rivera’s body ‘may never come back up’ if it is ‘entangled on something beneath the water’.  

Four-year-old Josey has meanwhile been returned to his family and was yesterday pictured in the arms of his father, Rivera’s ex-husband Ryan Dorsey. 

Along with the surveillance footage, cops have also shared the 911 call from the boat rental facility at 4.37pm when Rivera was first reported missing. 

The caller had apparently been sent to check on Rivera and her son after the actress failed to return the rental boat at the expected time.  

Mistaking four-year-old Josey for a girl, the caller said they had ‘found a little girl in one of the boats by the south end’ and added that ‘the mom is nowhere to be found’. 

The dispatcher asked for the child’s age and ethnicity, but the caller had yet to see the toddler close up and was told to gather more information before calling back.  

Rivera and her son had rented the boat around 1pm before sailing into the lake, located about 60 miles from the actress’s Los Angeles home. 

Swimming is allowed in the lake and authorities say there are ‘really no strong undercurrents like you would have in the ocean’, but warn that the cold water could cause hypothermia.  

It is not clear exactly where the boat was discovered, but the search is focusing on the northern part of the lake in an area where the water is about 30ft deep. 

Later, after retrieving the toddler, investigators learned that Naya and Josey had both gone in the water for swim, but that only Josey had climbed back on board. 

How this happened is not clear and cops admitted on Wednesday night that it was ‘somewhat challenging’ to interview a four-year-old. 

‘He gave enough information to investigators to conclude that his mother never made it out of the water,’ Sgt Kevin Donoghue said. 

Captain Eric Buschow told ABC that it remained a mystery how Naya had disappeared, speculating that she ‘could have suffered a medical episode’ while ‘playing innocently’ in the water. He added that investigators questioning the boy wanted to ‘limit the amount of trauma’ that Josey is facing. 

Divers and helicopters scoured the lake until night fell on Wednesday and continued their search for all of Thursday with rescuers using sonar equipment.  

Two German Shepherds from the California Rescue Dog Association have also been added to the expanding search party for Rivera, the Ventura County Star reports. 

They are trained to detect gasses that are released by human cadavers, performing a search along a grid of the lake and assisting divers in potentially locating Rivera’s body.  

The search for the Glee star resumed at first light on Thursday, but a statement from the sheriff’s office said it had ‘turned into a recovery mission’ with authorities no longer holding out hope that Rivera is alive. 

‘Investigators believe Rivera drowned in what appears to be a tragic accident,’ the sheriff’s office said after the four-year-old told them that his mother had not returned to the shore. There is no suspicion of foul play.  

Sgt Bill Hutton described the the search as being ‘very technical,’ adding that GPS data from the search would be analyzed overnight while conditions are too difficult to dive. 

Authorities say they plan to release footage to show just how difficult some of the conditions have been in the search. 

Sgt Kevin Donoghue from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, speaking at Lake Piru, said more than 100 police and first responders are now searching for Naya’s body.

Donoghue told reporters that the rescuers were focusing on the northern half of the lake ‘hoping to find any clues or evidence of her disappearance’. 

‘Our thoughts and prayers are with her family at this terrible time and we hope to bring closure for them,’ he said.

Donoghue warned it could be weeks before the body is found, if it is recovered at all. He said: ‘If the body is entangled on something beneath the water, it may never come back up.’

He added: ‘There’s no way to really say. We’re putting our best foot forward to try and locate her, we’re using all the assets that are available to us, we’re using technology like Sonar.’

Donoghue said experts involved in the search know the lake ‘inside and out,’ adding: ‘We’re relying on their expertise to help us in that endeavour. We’re going to do everything that we can to find her.’ 

The so-called recovery mission has involved helicopters from the Sheriff’s Office and US Coast Guard as well as multiple dive teams operating from six boats. 

The depth of the lake differs greatly, officer Chris Dyer said, saying it can go from between 50-60ft to 4ft over a short distance.  

Visibility in the lake during the daytime is about eight to 10 inches, while sizeable debris including trees flow beneath the surface, police said.

‘The difficult conditions have made the recovery operation a very slow process’, the sheriff’s office said, saying that conditions were too dangerous to continue the search overnight after some had criticized the pause. 

More than 100 rescuers are at the lake and involved in the effort to find Rivera, with ‘multiple dive teams’ searching the murky depths while two helicopters continue to scour the waves from above.

The task has been complicated by rising winds, with the surface becoming choppier. 

One diver, Max O’Brien, told reporters that the operation had become a ‘braille search’ with divers forced to uncover their surroundings ‘by feel’ because of the limited visibility’. 

‘There’s a lot of tree branches and overgrowth from when the lake was lower so we’re breaking through sticks and searching a heavy brush bottom,’ he said.  

The small vessel Naya was using is moored at the dock, marked off with yellow police tape. Sgt Donoghue said her purse and ID was found alongside her son.

There was also a life jacket onboard and her son was wearing a second life jacket. 

‘We know she has been to this lake before and is familiar with it but we aren’t sure whether her son has been here,’ he added.

He said officers are in constant contact with the actress’ family. ‘As far as we understand, her son is physically okay,’ he said. ‘From what I understand, he has told investigators his mother never made it out of the water.’ 

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

Naftoli Smolyanksy, 39, leaped into the water to save her and was able to put her back on the boat but then drowned in the water as it sped away from him.  

Rivera’s presumed death has sparked anger from locals who have demanded that warning signs be installed around the lake in a petition which has gathered more than 18,000 signatures. 

‘Naya Rivera is not the first, nor the last to go missing at Lake Piru. Lake Piru is a very deep lake with very bad whirlpools, people have been asking for years for the city to put up warning signs for swimmers,’ it reads. 

‘Locals of Ventura County don’t go to Lake Piru for this reason! Tourist have no idea what they’re getting into. Lake Piru needs signs. We’re tired of waiting. We need justice for all those who got lost at Lake Piru. Put up the signs.’

Lake Piru re-opened on July 1 after a number of campsites and recreational facilities in the Los Padres National were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

The lake, technically a reservoir, is owned by the United Water Conservation District which says it offers ‘an array of boat rentals from small V-hull fishing boats to a party pontoon boat for the family’. 

A policy document warns that swimmers are ‘engaging in a hazardous recreational activity and do so at their own risk’. Young children are required to wear life vests, while adults are encouraged to wear them but not required. 

Lake Piru is closed while the search continues and its owners say that ‘our thoughts are with the family and friends of Naya Rivera at this difficult time’.  

Josey’s father Ryan Dorsey was spotted holding the boy in his arms as they left the home of Naya’s sister, model Nickayla Rivera in Valencia, California on Thursday.

Dorsey, who has joint custody of his son after he divorced Glee star Naya in June 2018, was visibly upset earlier in the day as he woke up to the reality of what had happened. 

Dorsey’s housemate in Los Angeles told DailyMail.com that Dorsey immediately headed to the popular tourist spot as soon as he was notified that their son was found alone on a pontoon boat.

The housemate, who asked not to be named, said: ‘Ryan headed up there as soon as their son was found to look after him. He was gone by the time I got home Wednesday. ‘ 

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. 

A source close to the star told PEOPLE Magazine on Thursday that Rivera had seemed ‘happy,’ ‘busy’ and ‘just kind of living life’ in the weeks before her disappearance. 

‘Everybody is in a wait-and-see pattern and trying to figure out exactly what happened,’ the source said. 

‘Her son comes first. That’s apparent in everything she’s posted and done. Everything is about her son,’ the source told the outlet, adding: ‘Everybody is in disbelief.’ 

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 with then-husband 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’s former Glee co-star Demi Lovato was among those to hold out hope last night, saying on Twitter that she still hoped Naya would be found alive. 

‘I don’t tweet often but sometimes my tweets come true so, together let’s manifest on twitter that Naya will be found safe and sound!! Come on y’all! Let’s put this energy out there: they will find her healthy and alive,’ she said.

Heather Morris, another former Glee co-star, last night praised the California authorities for ‘working tirelessly right now in the search and recovery of our Naya’.  

Morris had previously said after learning of Rivera’s disappearance: ‘We need all the prayers we can get to bring our Naya back to us… we need your love and light.’  

‘Wing it and try to stay as healthy as I can:’ How Naya Rivera beamed with pride in 2019 DailyMailTV interview as she boasted about raising her son while being a working single mother in Hollywood 

Glee actress and singer Naya Rivera beamed with pride as she boasted about raising her son as a working single mother in Hollywood in a 2019 interview with DailyMailTV.

Rivera smiled about the enjoyment of mixing her career with parenting son Josey Hollis Dorsey, despite recognizing that ‘being a working woman’ brings ‘challenges’.

The 33-year-old reflected on her pride of starring in the global TV hit Glee for six series, even teasing her hopes for a reboot.

Rivera, who enjoyed a three-decade career in Hollywood, is still missing and presumed dead after her unaccompanied four-year-old son was found floating on a boat on Lake Piru in Ventura County Wednesday, sheriff’s officials said.

‘This is considered to be a horrible accident.’ Ventura County Sheriff’s Department officials said, expressing that no foul play was suspected.

The department said it responded to a report of a boy alone on a boat around 4.48pm. Officers on scene found the child, but no information was immediately released about the child’s condition.

Our unseen exclusive interview from Rivera came as she spoke at the annual Women’s Guild Cedars-Sinai gala to support the Women’s Guild and Cedars-Sinai hospital in May 2019.

That night she wowed on the red carpet in a daring plunging dark grey satin gown, posing with host Kevin Nealon and Shelley Cooper – the Women’s Guild President.

Rivera, who had just then finalized her divorce to Ryan Dorsey and agreed joint custody over Josey, reflected on being a Hollywood working mother.

‘Oh how do I do it? Oh gosh, I dunno, wing it? Wing it and try to stay as healthy as I can. I recently upped my workouts,’ Rivera said. 

‘Gotta wake up earlier because I’m a mom, gotta get to school drop off, but it’s so good. I feel like being a working woman and a working mother is always going to have its challenges.

‘I’ve been blessed and fortunate enough to work on shows and productions where that’s not really an issue, mostly because they’re female ran.’

Rivera, who has starred in Step Up: High Water created by Holly Sorensen since 2018, added: ‘The show I work on now, Step Up: High Water for YouTube, Holly runs it and so she’s our show runner and every one at YouTube has been great and so I’ve been able to have my son there and really prioritize both.’

Rivera was best known to audiences as Santana Lopez, a high school cheerleader, on Fox’s musical comedy series Glee, about a high school glee club. She appeared in 113 episodes of the Emmy winning series from its start in 2009 to end six years later.

Smiling about the ‘So many, too many (great memories) to count’, she revealed: ‘It was like six seasons so that’s a lot, a lot of special moments.

‘I feel like it’s different for everyone, it was all good. I think that Glee is still awesome and everybody still loves it and especially with it being on Netflix now, everyone gets to go and watch it.

‘I feel like the fans get younger and younger. I’m like how do you know, and they’re like Netflix.’

She teased that reports of a rebooted Glee would excite her as ‘Yeah, I feel like anything is possible.’

For more than 60 years, Women’s Guild has supported world-class healthcare through research and innovation.

Rivera felt it was an important cause for her to provide support.

‘Well all of the work that the Woman’s Guild does at Cedars Sinai is amazing obviously so I am happy to lend my support to anything like this.

‘I mean my son was born at Cedars, I love Cedars, I’m from LA so you know, I love it.

‘I’m really proud of all the work that they’ve done. Well, I think hospitals anywhere are special, you know what I mean? I mean it’s a really, really great hospital. They have fantastic healthcare, fantastic doctors, and they really go above and beyond to help, especially in research and innovation. I guess that’s what makes it super special.’ 

Women’s Guild members have raised nearly $50 million in support of Cedars-Sinai’s most critical work, including the Women’s Guild Chair in Gastroenterology, Women’s Guild Simulation Center for Advanced Clinical Skills, Women’s Guild Lung Institute, Saul and Joyce Brandman Breast Center–A Project of Women’s Guild at Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, and the soon-to-be announced Women’s Guild Neurology Transformation Project. 

The project will support innovative research and education for the understanding and treatment of complex neurological disorders, including stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, ALS, dementias, epilepsy and migraines.

Cedars-Sinai is a national leader in providing high-quality, patient-centered healthcare encompassing primary care as well as specialized medicine and conducting research that leads to lifesaving discoveries and innovations. 

Today, Cedars-Sinai is widely known for its national leadership in transforming healthcare to the benefit of patients.  

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