Nature-loving grandpa, 83, found dead in SoCal lake three days after vanishing on hike

A grieving Los Angeles family says they had to launch their own desperate search for their beloved 83-year-old grandfather who vanished at Hansen Dam — only to find him dead in the lake three days later —no thanks to police.Ramiro Herrera disappeared while visiting the Hansen Dam Recreation Area in Lake View Terrace.His family told the San Fernando Valley Sun that they organized their own daily search parties, starting with about 15 people on the first day and swelling to nearly 100 by the third.Authorities, they said, provided little assistance.Then, three days after Herrera disappeared, a volunteer searching with the family found his body in Hansen Dam Lake.The preliminary cause of death was accidental drowning.Herrera’s stepdaughter, Gabby Conde of Chatsworth, said the family had been forced to take matters into their own hands as the search dragged on.“My mom thought the police were going to do more.

She told me, ‘I can’t believe we’re the ones who found him,’” Conde told the Valley Sun.“We’re all really disappointed that we didn’t get the help that we needed from the LAPD [Los Angeles Police Department].

If we had, maybe things would have turned out differently.”The grieving family is now planning a funeral in Monterey Park, close to the couple’s East LA home, but they’re also left with questions about whether additional measures by police could have changed anything.“On that first day, I asked them, ‘Well, can you send out [search] dogs? Maybe if the dogs can pick up his scent, they can find him,’” Conde told the newspaper.She said they told her that wasn’t an option to use a K-9 unit for the search because “they didn’t have the financial resources.”Herrera went missing after he decided to take a walk around 1:30 p.m.

on Sunday, Aug.9.When Herrera didn’t return by 3 p.m., his wife, Rosa Ohm, knew something was wrong.That’s when the family reached out to LAPD and filed a missing person report.LAPD officers a...