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New information prompts PCSD to search desert where body of teen was found

Posted at 9:07 PM, Oct 25, 2017
and last updated 2017-10-26 13:19:26-04

Detectives with the Pima County Sheriff's Department searched the area where the body of a teen was found three years ago.

Maribel Gonzales was reported as a runaway in June 2014 and her body was found three days later in a desert area near Trico Road and Avra Valley Road.

PCSD says investigators recently discovered additional information which led them back to the desert area where the teen's body was found.

Deputies spent the day searching a large area of the desert in hopes of finding more evidence that could lead to an arrest.

KGUN9 spoke to Maribel's mother, Valerie Calonge, one year after the teen's death.

Gonzales was murdered six months after her mother, Valerie Calonge, survived a deadly and deliberate New Year's Eve hit-and-run.

Calonge's boyfriend died that night. The attacker, Michael Leday was later found guilty and sentenced to more than 57 years in prison.