Searchers Fail to Find 3 Missing in Sea Tragedy

Coast Guard ships and a helicopter searched in vain Tuesday for more survivors of a pleasure craft that capsized with six people aboard, including a 9-year-old girl who withstood 12 hours in the chilly Pacific before her rescue.

Doctors treated Desiree Rodriguez of Riverside for hypothermia and exhaustion at San Pedro Peninsula Hospital and, after an overnight stay, released her Tuesday to the custody of an aunt and uncle, who asked not to be identified. The girl’s mother was killed in the boating accident; her father is among the missing.

While the search of a 150-square-mile stretch of ocean 15 miles southwest of San Pedro continued, Coast Guard officials investigating the cause of the tragedy pulled the 28-foot power vessel D.C. Too out of the water at the Terminal Island Coast Guard base, where it had been towed.

No Sign of Collision

They found no signs of a collision with another vessel, Chief Petty Officer John MacPherson said, adding that left at least two other possible explanations for the mishap.

He said the boat, motoring back to San Pedro from Santa Catalina Island, may have been capsized by a freak wave or by the swell from a passing large vessel sometime late Sunday or early Monday. The investigation into those possibilities is continuing, MacPherson said.

Desiree, wrapped in an orange life preserver, was found by a passing sport-fishing vessel shortly after 5 p.m. Monday. The bodies of her mother, Petra Rodriguez, 29, and family friend Corinne Wheeler, 33, were recovered nearby.

Still unaccounted for are Desiree’s father, Thomas Rodriguez, 30; her 5-year-old sister, Tricia, and Corinne Wheeler’s husband, Allen Wheeler, all of Riverside.

Although a long-range Coast Guard helicopter based in San Diego and two Coast Guard ships found nothing Tuesday, officials stressed the search would continue.

“If we didn’t think there was a chance of survival, we would not be out there,” Coast Guard Lt. Debra Harbaugh said. “We do not search for bodies--we search for people.”

Hospital spokeswoman Laurie Lundberg said of Desiree’s release: “Her recovery was phenomenal. She walked out on her own.”