New Port Richey, Florida -- Pasco County detectives were answering questions Tuesday about criticism in their search for missing Wesley Chapel mother Linda Losacano.
The 49-year-old's brother David is also offering some insight as to what may have happened.
At the sheriff's office in New Port Richey there seemed to be a sense of urgency, as if detectives find themselves up against a clock.
If Linda is still alive, her brother says they better hurry up and find her.
David says he believes his sister is either gone, or perhaps clinging to life in a white trailer that is missing from the Wesley Chapel home where Linda lived with her boyfriend Tim Arnold.
"Linda is not alive. I'm telling you if she is, she's getting pretty damn hungry," said David. "She's tied up and hungry as hell and thirsty as hell and probably about to die of starvation."
David says his sister had spoken about moving closer to family in New Hampshire with Kaylie, the 5-year-old daughter that she and Arnold shared. But David says Arnold, who appears to have committed suicide on Sunday, was adamantly against it.
He recalled Arnold's ominous reaction when they spoke of splitting up.
"'Linda, I can't live without you. There's no way I'm going to live without you,'" David remembered Arnold saying. "'If I don't have you, I'm not going to live.'"
Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco says investigators cannot presume Linda Losacano is dead, despite finding evidence detectives say may indicate foul play. While offering no specifics about the evidence investigators have found, Sheriff Nocco repeatedly indicated Losacano might be alive, but unable to reach out for help.
"God forbid there's a situation where she's being held up somewhere and she's tied up, we have to be able to get to her," said the Sheriff.
Nocco's detectives also defend their handling of the Losacano case. Nocco called his deputies who entered the house Sunday "heroes" for having saved Losacano's daughter, Kaylie.
Arnold, he says, apparently killed himself as lawmen entered the home.
There have been questions and criticism from Losacano's extended family about why it took so long for investigators to check on Losacano, who hadn't been seen or heard from since April 14th.
"That is from an individual who is up in New Hampshire who is not part of the immediate family," said Sheriff Nocco. "And in these types of situations we deal with the immediate family."
[...]
On Sunday, neighbors say they heard a deputy ask Losacano's daughter Kaylie where her mommy was, and that the little girl answered by pointing upward.
But Sheriff Nocco says they simply can't afford to weigh that too heavily.
"We know, that she said her mommy's not with her right now. But, however, it's a five year old," said Sheriff Nocco.
"You know, there's a five-year-old out there who wants her mother and we're trying to find her right now."
Kaylie, say officials, is still in the care of Linda's sister Connie from New Hampshire. The sheriff's office describes their relationship with the immediate family as still being a positive one.
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