State police are seeking to locate a woman with connections to the Tyrone area who went missing after she allegedly gave a ride to an Altoona man who\u2019s body was found burning along a road near Blandburg in Cambria County last Thursday night.
\nCourt documents indicate the disappearance of Christina DeStefano may be connected with the murder of 22-year-old James Tucker. His body was found burning along the road last week. He had been shot three times according to police.
\nEbensburg State Police provided a release to The Daily Herald regarding Tucker\u2019s murder and would only confirm they have more than one \u201cpersons of interest\u201d in the case. The Hollidaysburg State Police confirmed DeStefano as a missing person.
\nCourt documents show authorities attempted to locate DeStefano on Friday and Saturday after they learned from Tucker\u2019s girlfriend that a woman identified as DeStefano picked up Tucker in Altoona around 9 p.m. on Thursday. Tucker\u2019s burning body was found later that same night along Fire Tower Road in Reade Township. The woman said Tucker left Altoona with $2,000 to $3,000 in cash and crack cocaine.
\nPolice also learned of a connection between DeStefano and Torone Dixon, aka \u201cTuTu.\u201d The court documents state that on Thursday night Dixon told a man he had been ripped off and \u201cthe guy was done in.\u201d Dixon wanted to buy a vehicle from the man he spoke with. He told the man he had to get out of town.
\nAn affidavit of probable cause filed with a magisterial district judge in Altoona showed that DeStefano\u2019s current address was unknown and family members could not shed light on her whereabouts.
\nHowever, the documents show the woman\u2019s grandmother received two phone calls from DeStefano on Sunday morning. In the first call, DeStefano told her grandmother she loved her. In a second call, DeStefano\u2019s grandmother heard a man\u2019s voice in the background and asked DeStefano if she was being held against her will. DeStefano said she was and the phone then went dead.
\nPolice learned DeStefano was due to move into a trailer in Grazierville that was owned by a family member on Monday. Authorities located the trailer and observed a vehicle parked to the rear of it. The court documents said the vehicle matched the description of a vehicle that authorities believed Dixon was operating.
\nNeighbors in Grazierville said they had seen people matching DeStefano and Dixon\u2019s description at the trailer. The last sighting was on Friday night although another neighbor did indicate that a light had been seen on in the trailer around 4 a.m. on Sunday.
\nThe court documents said police received permission from the owner of the trailer to forcibly enter it due to concern for DeStefano\u2019s safety. Police entered the trailer on Sunday afternoon and nobody was found inside.
\nPolice observed a pair of jeans in plain view that appeared to have blood on it. Authorities wanted to obtain the jeans since the clothing might have a connection to Tucker\u2019s murder and\/or possible foul play concerning DeStefano.
\nA search warrant was filed and police found several items in the trailer in addition to the jeans. The items included other clothing, guns, ammunition and a cellular phone. Also among the items found were spent shell casings from a .22 caliber gun.
\nThe Cambria County DA\u2019s office told The Daily Herald no arrests have been made regarding the case as of this morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
State police are seeking to locate a woman with connections to the Tyrone area who went missing after she allegedly gave a ride to an Altoona man who\u2019s body was found burning along a road near Blandburg in Cambria County last Thursday night. Court documents indicate the disappearance of Christina DeStefano may be connected with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}