MISSING SIMI MOTHER, 25, STILL SOUGHT WHAT HAPPENED TO RENEE FOX? FAMILY, DETECTIVES WANT ANSWER.

Byline: ERIC LEACH Staff Writer

SIMI VALLEY -- Renee Fox was going through a difficult divorce and was looking for a new place to live.

So last month, the 25-year-old Simi Valley woman with a poor sense of direction was heading north through the Owens Valley, a place more than 200 miles away to which relatives said she had never traveled.

She stayed near June Lake in the Sierra Nevada, then was seen the next day, June 23, sobbing outside the historic Inyo County Courthouse in Independence along Highway 395.

Eventually, she ended up on a desolate dirt road east of Independence, a road not fit for her Volkswagen Jetta. For whatever reason, she continued on into Mazourka Canyon, passing signs that warn drivers about the treacherous terrain. Then she tried to drive over a large mound of sand, broke an axle and her car's oil pan and started walking.

Then, she disappeared.

Her family has searched the mine-shaft-dotted landscape and has hired a private investigator to hunt for her. So far, the only things that have turned up are her car and her purse with a few hundred dollars in it.

``You've got to be in a four-wheel-drive or on a horse in there. It's amazing,'' said Tye Atwater, the detective hired by the family. ``Everybody hopes she's still alive. She very well could be. At this point, nobody knows exactly how she came to be missing. It just doesn't make sense. She's a real city gal, not the kind of person to be up there exploring the desert. She's never even been up there before.''

Fox had recently graduated from Pierce College with plans to go on with her education to become a teacher. She was also distraught over her ongoing divorce and told a friend she was looking for a new home for herself and her 5-month-old son.

Her relatives said she had a poor sense of direction and could get lost even around her own home.

``When she gets out of Simi Valley, she doesn't know where Thousand Oaks is,'' said her brother, David Waldbogel, who used a motorcycle to search for days in the Mazourka Canyon area for his sister. ``This is basically the same terrain as Death Valley.''

In all, Fox drove about 16 miles in the isolated area before her car broke down.

``She spent the night in the car, then wrapped some stuff she wanted in a blanket and started walking, about eight miles,'' her brother said.

Inyo County sheriff's deputies and family members said some campers in a four-wheel-drive vehicle reported seeing her walking and stopped to give her some water.

``They say she was delirious,'' Waldbogel said. ``They called police, and they came back on Sunday and found her purse. ... That's really puzzling because she never lets go of her purse.''

Sheriff's deputies and search teams used dogs and helicopters to look for the 5-foot-tall, 100-pound blond woman last seen wearing a black blouse with thin shoulder straps.

Near the spot where her purse was found, there was an old mine shaft, and search dogs lost her scent in that area, which Waldbogel said might indicate she got a ride from someone. ``Maybe someone forced her into a vehicle,'' he said.

At some point, she walked by a cabin near a spring with fresh running water, Inyo County sheriff's Detective Paul Bedell said, where she could have taken shelter and waited for help. But she might not have known the water was there, he said. Bedell said witnesses confirmed it was Fox sobbing by the courthouse June 23. A convenience store clerk also told police she came into the store two days later, asking for water, but that report is unconfirmed.

``Rene is a very beautiful young woman,'' said her aunt, Linda Romig of Winnetka. ``She thinks everybody is her friend. She was going to school because she wanted to teach children. She's very intelligent, but she has no sense of direction. I'm assuming she made a wrong turn.''

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Missing Simi Valley woman Renee Fox.