A spokesperson for Ventura County Sheriff's Office tells ET that the actress' family visited the lake on Saturday.
Amid the ongoing search for Naya Rivera, the former Glee star's family visited the California lake where she went missing earlier this week. A spokesperson for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, who is on the scene at Lake Piru, confirms to ET that Rivera's family members were at the lake on Saturday with investigators. As of 2:45 p.m., the family was still there. The spokesperson could not confirm which specific family members were at the lake.
"We’ve been utilizing all the same resources we’ve been utilizing the last three days: cadaver dogs, sonar technology, helicopters," the spokesperson tells ET. "Tulare County Sheriff has been assisting since the beginning and we have San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Office [assisting too]."
Per the spokesperson, there has been no status change.
When asked if Rivera is still presumed dead, the spokesperson replied, "That’s correct. It’s a recovery effort on our part and our hope is to obviously bring closure to the family. They are pretty devastated as you can imagine. That’s our goal, to bring that closure to them as best we can here."
On Saturday, Ventura County Sheriff's Office also tweeted that they were continuing the search for Rivera.
"We will keep you posted of any updates,” they wrote. Rivera went missing on Wednesday, after taking a boat ride in the lake with her 4-year-old son, Josey.
On Friday, Ventura County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Capt. Eric Buschow shared that they had been in constant communication with Rivera's family since her disappearance.
"This is a situation that is difficult because we don't know if she will be found five minutes from now or five days from now," he stated. "Our investigators have been in contact with the family since the beginning of this. We have a liaison with the family, working with them, and, of course, they are going through an extremely difficult time."
Adding, "We're trying to do everything we can to provide as much resources as we can and provide some closure for them."
With only one to two feet of visibility, cadaver dogs, sonar devices, a Coast Guard helicopter and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department were also called in to help search for Rivera.
"Unfortunately, the targets that they've marked so far and gone down and investigated, have not been what they're looking for, so the search continues," Buschow said, explaining that they are focusing on the north side and east side of the lake.
"Wherever she went down, they're confident that that's where she'll be found, it's just finding that spot that's the difficult part," he said, adding that the lake is two miles long and its deepest point is about 130 feet. "There's a lot of area to cover."
However, in a press conference on Thursday, Ventura County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Kevin Donoghue said her body may never be found due to Lake Piru's "terrible" visibility.
"In this particular lake, in that area, there's a lot of trees and plants and such that are under the water that can cause entanglements. It makes it unsafe for the divers and it makes it a more complicated search," Donoghue explained. "If the body is entangled in something beneath the water, it may never come back up. We don't know."
Reporting by Joseph Corral.
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