Family offers $5,000 reward for leads on missing woman

The family of an Orange County woman missing since a Valentine’s Day date is offering a $5,000 reward for information on her whereabouts, according to the county Sheriff’s Department.

Erica Alonso, 27, disappeared after driving away from her boyfriend’s home in Irvine around 4 a.m. Feb. 15 following a night out at a Costa Mesa club, police said.

In March, authorities found Alonso’s white Honda Civic abandoned in Aliso Viejo about a mile from her Laguna Hills home, but there was no sign of her.

Her family hopes a reward will turn up new leads. During the past few weeks, the family raised $3,000 and a sheriff’s reserve deputy donated an additional $2,000, sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Hallock wrote in an announcement Wednesday.

Investigators are pursuing the case but there is no new information to release, Hallock added.

“We’re not going to give up,” Alonso’s father, Isaac Alonso Sr., said in an interview in February. “We have a feeling that she is alive somewhere.”

The night before her disappearance, Erica Alonso and her boyfriend met another couple at Sutra Lounge in Costa Mesa.

Early the next morning, the couple drove Alonso and her boyfriend to the boyfriend’s home in Irvine, according to authorities. The couple told investigators that they left the house at around 3:45 a.m. when Alonso and her boyfriend began to argue, Hallock said previously.

Authorities said Alonso left 10 to 15 minutes later and has been missing since.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Sheriff’s Department’s homicide unit at (714) 647-7055 or (714) 647-7000 or leave an anonymous tip by calling 855-TIP-OCCS (847-6227) or visiting occrimestoppers.org.

Emily Foxhall of the Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.