emily sander

police struggle to identify a body found 50 miles east of El Dorado, Kansas as missing student Emily Sanders, family members say a body in the strange case of the student turned porn star would bring closure.
"We had to know one way or another," Sanders grandmother, Shirley Sander, said in a telephone interview with the Chicago Tribune.

It's been one of the most interesting cases to rock Kansas in years. Sander, who has been missing since Friday night, may have been leading a double life as a porn star under the name Zoey Zane.

Authorities said the body they found matches a preliminary description of the 18-year-old business managements student, who hasn't been seen since leaving the Retreat Bar in El Dorado Friday night with 24-year-old Israel Mireles.

Authorities have not indicated whether it is known if Sander left with Mireles willingly or was forced to accompany him from the bar.

According to report on WOAI.com, evidence found in a hotel room formerly occupied by Mireles, including a large amount of blood, prompted police to believe something violent occurred to Sanders in the room.

Despite media attention surrounding Sanders' double life, Police Chief Tom Boren insists there is no evidence to suggest her Internet persona had anything to do with Sanders' disappearance.

"The issue of the Internet and the spinoff of that has been literally crippling our investigation," Boren said.

A report from the Houston Chronicle yesterday suggested that Emily Sander may have been working as an internet porn star under the name Zoey Zane.

Photos of Zoey Zane seen on YourDailyGirls.com resembled the missing college student and Nikki Watson, a friend of Sander's, told the Associated Press that the two were indeed the same person.

"She enjoyed it. She is a young teenage girl and she wanted to be in the movies… she needed the extra money," Watson told the AP.

Some of the photos of Zoey Zane on YourDailyGirls.com show her posing in nude, lesbian-themed photos with two other women in Wizard of Oz costumes. The main web site with explicit photos and videos of Zane, www.zoeyzane.com, was taken down since rumors about Sander's double life began to circulate.

Mireles, meanwhile, has vanished along with his 16 year-old pregnant girlfriend, Victoria Martens. The couple's rental car was found abandoned in Vernon, Texas and police believe they may be headed for Mexico.

Investigators are asking anyone with information about the Emily Sander case to call them at Emily Sander case timeline
Major events in the disappearance of Emily Sander:

Friday: Emily Sander, 18, is last seen leaving the Retreat bar in El Dorado with Israel Mireles.

Saturday: Police find room splattered with blood at the El Dorado Motel, about a mile and a half from the Retreat bar. Mireles had been staying at that motel while he worked as a waiter at a restaurant next to the motel.

Also Saturday: Police find Sander's car parked at the bar. Meanwhile, police say, Mireles left Kansas for Texas on Saturday, taking his pregnant 16-year-old girlfriend with him.

Sunday: Police release photos of Emily Sander, Israel Mireles and his girlfriend.

Monday: Police announced they found "evidence" in Mireles' hotel room.

Tuesday: Police ask the public to help find a bedspread that went missing from the motel room on the night Emily disappeared. Witnesses who had seen the motel room said they saw "a lot of blood" in there.

Wednesday: Police in Texas find the rental car they say Mireles used to travel there. Also: Search teams walked along U.S. 54 in Greenwood County and in El Dorado near a bridge crossing the Walnut River.

Thursday: The body of a woman matching Sander's description is found along U.S. 54 Highway between El Dorado and Toronto.