SAN FRANCISCO — There are new leads in the search for a Charlotte teen who disappeared nearly two decades ago.
Investigators were on the scene of a home in Oakland, California Thursday where Kristen Modafferi was living when she vanished in 1997. She was 18 years old at that time.
Human decomposition was detected in the basement of that house, former Mammoth Lakes police detective Paul Dostie said.
Dostie and his dog Buster have done extensive work searching for missing Americans from WWII in Europe and in the Pacific.
Several months ago he was contacted by a former investigator helping the Modafferi family find its missing daughter.
Modafferi was a sophomore at North Carolina State taking a summer course at the University of California-Berkeley.
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She was last seen leaving her job at a coffee house in San Francisco.
Eyewitness News' sister station KGO in San Francisco talked to the former detective now bringing renewed hope that the mystery of her disappearance may be solved after his dog picked up a scent from this drain near the home.
Buster then tracked a scent from the vents that lead to the basement.
"There is human decomposition present here, 100 percent," Dostie said. "The question is that is the source of that decomposition, and that's what we hope to get with the soil analysis."
Dostie took several samples from the soil inside this basement, which could eventually tell him if there could be human remains and possibly the time of death.
"If we get the chemicals that are showing in that 20-year time range, that would give us a strong indication that it's Kristen," Dostie said.
Modafferi's father now lives in Florida.
"We're hoping that we'll finally get some closure and be able to finally put this case to rest and know what happened to our daughter," said Bob Modafferi.
Oakland police went to the home Thursday and documented the basement and where the dog got hits, KGO reported.
It's a missing person case and there is not a crime scene, police said.
People in Charlotte have worked for years to find the woman, including Joan Petruski, founder of the Kristen Foundation.
Modafferi's case was most recently in the news in March after the arrest of millionaire Robert Durst, who was linked to several murders and was living in San Francisco at the time of her disappearance.
The FBI said there is no evidence Durst is linked to this case.
People in Charlotte have worked for years to find Modafferi including Joan Petruski.
She is the founder of the Kristen Foundation.
Eyewitness News anchor Natalie Pasquarella spoke to her by phone Thursday night.
Petruski is hopeful after the new developments.
"I just felt for some reason, this year, we're going to have an answer in her disappearance," Petruski said. "This is the beginning and we're going to focus on this now. This is very important.”
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