PRESCOTT, Ariz. - Two Prescott children are still without their parents Thursday as their mother is missing and their father is the suspect in her disappearance.
Investigators searched the family’s home and the areas north and west of there, including Camp Wood.
Day after day for half a year, Old Stage Stop employee Katie McCormick saw 39-year-old Sandra Pagniano walk through the doors of the shop.
“Every morning, she came in, she got a large coffee,” McCormick said, adding, “She had her hair up, ready to go to work.”
That was until last weekend, when it was deputies going in, asking for surveillance video. Then, Pagniano’s friends showed up, handing out fliers; the Prescott woman was missing.
Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn said a friend of Pagniano's called deputies on Sunday, worried.
“They had talked about meeting on Saturday and when Sandra didn’t show up, [the friend] called the sheriff’s office,” D’Evelyn said.
The missing woman’s ex-husband, David Pagniano, is at the center of the investigation.
Detectives said he was acting strange when they showed up at his front door Tuesday night.
“Seemed somewhat detached from the whole idea that she was gone,” D’Evelyn said.
A closer look landed David Pagniano behind bars, charged with second-degree murder.
“We found some evidence indicating that she might’ve been harmed or killed,” D’Evelyn said.
He said this could all be a divorce gone sour. The two were trying to sell their home but were still living together with their children.
David Pagniano was still in custody on a $2 million bond Thursday afternoon.
Anyone with any information on this case is asked to call Yavapai Silent Witness at 1-800-932-3232. Information leading to an arrest could result in a $1,000 cash reward.