The father of a southern California woman found dead on the far south end of the valley said Thursday that his daughter traveled to Pahrump to visit two friends.
Jeff Edwards said his wife last saw their daughter Margay Edwards, 27, on the evening of Sept. 12 in Baywood, Calif., a community near Los Osos. She was found dead by a man riding an ATV on Sept. 25.
Edwards said he believes the people his daughter was visiting in Pahrump may hold the answer to her disappearance and death.
“She knew some people in Pahrump, a man and a woman,” Edwards said. “The man was the last person to see her alive on Sunday the 14th. I’m not sure if they were close friends or just casual acquaintances. She met the couple late last year and spent some time at their home in Pahrump for several weeks.”
Edwards’ comments come as Nye County Sheriff’s Office is declining to publicly discuss specifics of the case, such as cause of death or if there are any suspects, only classifying the case as a criminal investigation.
Edwards said the family last heard from their daughter Sept. 14, just after 8:30 a.m., when she called her parents from Pahrump. Later the same day she was spotted in her car by two local residents, according to the Nye County Sheriff’s Office.
Detectives are still looking for the missing rental car Edwards was driving at the time of her death, described as a 2014 metallic blue Hyundai Accent, license plate number 7ESZ966.
The car was rented from an Avis agency in Carlsbad, Calif., but did not have a GPS tracking system which can locate a car if it’s been stolen. A rental agent on Thursday said the devices do not come standard on the rentals, but they can be rented.
In April of this year, Edwards said his daughter returned to California to prepare for college at San Diego State University where she was enrolled for the fall semester in August.
“Obviously she wasn’t in school because she was in Pahrump,” he said.
On Wednesday, Nye County Sheriff’s Detective Joe McGill said shortly after her arrival in Pahrump, a Nye County deputy responded to a call involving Edwards.
“It was a basic traffic stop and a very inconsequential contact,” McGill said. “If it was anything more than that, I would not speak of it. It was really nothing.”
McGill also said it is uncertain whether Edwards traveled alone to Pahrump, while noting that the woman was spotted by two local residents after arriving in town.
“There has been conflicting information on that,” McGill said. “I’ve been told she was alone and I’ve also been told she was with someone else.”
According to the Associated Press, Sheriff Tony DeMeo said she had been staying in a hotel in Las Vegas.
The location where Edwards’ body was discovered is a remote area bordering on Bureau of Land Management land. McGill said he wouldn’t speculate on whether Edwards was killed at the scene or somewhere else and brought to the desert about a quarter mile from the roadway.
He noted that the missing vehicle may provide valuable information.
Edwards, meanwhile, described his daughter as a trusting person who had many friends. He suggested that her outgoing personality may have made her a target.
“She made friends very easily and perhaps she was a little too trusting of people in some ways,” Edwards said. “She loved her little 6-year-old brother, Jack, and more than anything, she loved her mother. They were extremely close and did a lot of things together, they traveled together. They were just an incredible daughter-mother combination.”
Edwards also said he believes that the couple his daughter visited know what happened to her. He stopped just short of calling them suspects.
“One way or another they know what happened, or they had something to do with it,” Edwards said.
Aside from the missing vehicle, her cell phone was not located at the crime scene, Edwards said.
The news of Edwards’ death is making news across the country as major television networks and cable news channels are reporting on it this week. Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo appeared on CNN’s Nancy Grace broadcast on Thursday.
Anyone with information on Edwards’ death or the missing vehicle is urged to call the Nye County Sheriff’s Office at 775-751-7000.