Police have remained in a standoff for several hours with a “person of interest” in the case involving a missing 25-year-old Hollister woman.
Hollister police have barricaded off the area in the 2100 block of Cerra Vista Drive and have advised residents to stay away. The home is across the street from Cerra Vista School and about a mile from the location where police found the missing woman’s sport utility vehicle engulfed in flames early Thursday.
Police believe the person in the home has a connection to Heather Carroll, a mother and wife who went missing Wednesday after dropping off her young boy at Ladd Lane School. Police found her SUV at at 2 a.m. Thursday in an area near Enterprise Road and Glenview Drive.
As of 8:45 p.m. Friday, police from area agencies were surrounding the neighborhood. As the standoff had continued for more than four hours, the scene was relatively quiet. Police with a trained Gilroy SWAT team had been in contact with the person of interest, but Hollister interim Police Chief David Westrick did not know the level of communication that occurred to that point.
As the standoff continued Friday night, dozens of neighborhood residents gathered outside of the barricaded area to watch the events unfold.
Authorities had been in the standoff since early Friday evening. Police were on the way to the residence when they were alerted the person might have a firearm, said the chief, who indicated the timing of the tip about a gun was a coincidence.
Westrick declined to verify details about the person of interest. He said police did not know whether anyone else was in the home.
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