Sheriff's release CCTV footage of Naya Rivera and her son Josey boarding boat

Authorities searching for Glee actress Naya Rivera have released CCTV footage of the mother and her son Josey arriving at Lake Piru and boarding their small boat, which would eventually be found with the young boy alone. 

The Ventura Sheriff’s Department released the footage Thursday, showing the 33-year-old and her four-year-old son arrive at the lake on Wednesday. 

Footage shows Rivera pulling into the parking lot and helping get Josey out of her truck, before proceeding to the boat rental where they board one of the vessels and head out into the lake. 

Rivera is presumed dead after the pair went into the water to go swimming but the actress failed to reappear, leaving Josey asleep on the drifting boat with his mother’s life vest still on board and her car in the parking lot.  

The search for Rivera was suspended for a second night running after darkness fell on Thursday night, with no sign of a body discovered so far. The search will continue in the morning, but has been redesignated as a ‘recovery operation’ because investigators believe that Rivera drowned in ‘what appears to be a tragic accident’. 

Divers say the waters are murky and full of plants, limiting their visibility to no more than 5ft, and authorities warn that Rivera’s body ‘may never come back up’ if it is ‘entangled on something beneath the water’. 

Four-year-old Josey has meanwhile been returned to his family and was yesterday pictured in the arms of his father, Rivera’s ex-husband Ryan Dorsey. 

As well as the surveillance footage, cops have also shared the 911 call from the boat rental facility at 4.37pm in which Rivera was first reported missing. 

Mistaking four-year-old Josey for a girl, the caller said they had ‘found a little girl in one of the boats by the south end’ and added that ‘the mom is nowhere to be found’. 

The dispatcher asked for the child’s age and ethnicity, but the caller had yet to see the toddler close up and was told to gather more information before calling back.  

Later, after retrieving the toddler, investigators learned that Naya and Josey had both gone in the water to go swimming, but that only Josey had climbed back on board. 

How this happened is not clear and cops admitted yesterday that it was ‘somewhat challenging’ to obtain the details in an interview with a four-year-old. 

Divers and helicopters scoured the lake until night fell on Wednesday and continued their search for all of Thursday. Two German Shepherds from the California Rescue Dog Association have also been added to the expanding search party for Rivera, the Ventura County Star reports. 

They are trained to detect gasses that are released by human cadavers, performing a search along a grid of the lake and assisting divers in potentially locating Rivera’s body.  

Sgt. Bill Hutton described the the search as being ‘very technical,’ adding that the search for the actress will continue until nightfall. GPS data from the search will then be analyzed overnight. 

Authorities do plan to release footage to show just how difficult some of the conditions have been in the search. 

Sgt Kevin Donoghue from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, speaking at Lake Piru, said more than 100 police and first responders are now searching for Naya’s body – and the search will go on through the night.

‘Our thoughts and prayers are with her family at this terrible time and we hope to bring closure for them,’ he said.

Donoghue warned it could be weeks before the body is found, if it is recovered at all. He said: ‘If the body is entangled on something beneath the water, it may never come back up.’

He added: ‘There’s no way to really say. We’re putting our best foot forward to try and locate her, we’re using all the assets that are available to us, we’re using technology like Sonar.’

Donoghue said experts involved in the search know the lake ‘inside and out,’ adding: ‘We’re relying on their expertise to help us in that endeavour. We’re going to do everything that we can to find her.’ 

The search for the Glee star resumed at first light on Thursday. 

It has involved helicopters from the Sheriff’s Office and Coastguard as well as multiple dive teams operating from six boats. 

The small vessel Naya was using is moored at the dock, marked off with yellow police tape. Sgt Donoghue said her purse and ID was found alongside her son.

There was also a life jacket onboard and her son was wearing a second life jacket. 

‘We know she has been to this lake before and is familiar with it but we aren’t sure whether her son has been here,’ he added.

He said officers are in constant contact with the actress’ family.

‘As far as we understand, her son is physically okay,’ he said.

‘From what I understand, he has told investigators his mother never made it out of the water.  

Father Ryan Dorsey was spotted holding Josey in his arms as they left the home of Naya’s sister, model Nickayla Rivera in Valencia, California on Thursday.

Dorsey, who has joint custody of his son after he divorced Glee star Naya in June 2018, was visibly upset earlier in the day as he woke up to the reality of what had happened.

Dorsey’s housemate in Los Angeles told DailyMail.com that Dorsey immediately headed to the popular tourist spot as soon as he was notified that their son was found alone on a pontoon boat.

The housemate, who asked not to be named, said: ‘Ryan headed up there as soon as their son was found to look after him. He was gone by the time I got home Wednesday. ‘  

The small vessel Naya was using is moored at the dock, marked off with yellow police tape. Sgt Donoghue said her purse and ID was found alongside her son.

There was also a life jacket onboard and her son was wearing a second life jacket.

He also said investigators have CCTV footage from the dock showing only Naya and her son getting onboard the small boat.

‘We know she has been to this lake before and is familiar with it but we aren’t sure whether her son has been here,’ he added.

He said officers are in constant contact with the actress’ family.

‘As far as we understand, her son is physically okay,’ he said.

‘From what I understand, he has told investigators his mother never made it out of the water. 

Authorities initially reported the ‘potential drowning victim’ on Wednesday evening and had to end their search the first night, describing tumultuous conditions for the diving teams. 

‘Everyone is in disbelief’: Naya Rivera seemed ‘happy’ before disappearance as a source says four-year-old son Josey ‘comes first’ to the Glee star

Glee star Naya Rivera is said to have seemed ‘happy,’ ‘busy’ and ‘just kind of living life’ weeks before her four-year-old son was found alone in Lake Piru, Ventura County, California, where she is now missing and presumed dead.

‘Everybody is in a wait-and-see pattern and trying to figure out exactly what happened,’ a source close to the star has told PEOPLE Magazine on Thursday.

The source is said to have seen Rivera, 33, just a few weeks ago and also revealed how her loved ones are in ‘disbelief’ over her disappearance and the circumstances, as her son Josey Dorsey ‘comes first’ to the star. 

The source explained that while ‘back in the day’ Rivera’s life was ‘all about her career’ she had recently shifted her priorities on being a doting mother to her son.

‘Her son comes first. That’s apparent in everything she’s posted and done. Everything is about her son,’ the source told the outlet, adding: ‘Everybody is in disbelief.’

Police said on Thursday that the search and rescue mission for Rivera is now being considered a recovery operation, a day after she vanished from the California lake where she’d been boating with her son. 

Rivera vanished on Wednesday while on Lake Piru with her son Josey, who told police that she’d ‘jumped’ into the water to go swimming and never came back. He was found asleep on their drifting boat.

As search and rescue teams searched the lake on Thursday, local sheriffs gave grim details about the lake which Rivera was familiar with and had been visiting for years.

Ventura County Deputy Sheriff Chris Dyer said on Thursday that Lake Piru was a ‘sanctuary’ for Naya, she was familiar with the lake and has been going there for years.

Rivera welcomed her son, Josey Hollis, with then-husband Ryan Dorsey in 2015. She called her young son ‘my greatest success, and I will never do any better than him’ in her 2016 memoir ‘Sorry Not Sorry.’

Rivera and Hollis divorced in 2018, after Rivera had earlier applied to end the marriage in 2016 but the couple had initially reconciled.

On Thanksgiving weekend 2017, Rivera was arrested in West Virginia on suspicion of domestic battery against Dorsey. The Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office said Dorsey later asked that Rivera not be prosecuted.

Dorsey, also an actor, has appeared on shows including Ray Donavan and Justified.

Former Glee co-star Matthew Morrison defended Rivera at the time of her arrest, saying she was a ‘great mom’.

Initially, police had hoped to find the actress alive and were searching the expansive shoreline as well as in the water. Now though, they say the mission is a recovery operation.

‘There’s no evidence of foul play at this point. This may well be a case of drowning,’ sheriff’s Capt. Eric Buschow said.

He said it was an employee who works at the boat shack who found the boat and the child in the north part of the lake.

‘My indication is that the child was found sleeping on the boat,’ he said at a press conference near the lake Thursday.

‘I’ve been told Naya Rivera has been coming here for years and she is familiar with the lake. This might be a little sanctuary for her, especially on a Wednesday – no one’s here on a Wednesday so it’s a good day to come. She rented the boat.’

Deputy Sheriff Dyer added: ‘We’re not presuming her dead and right now it’s still a search and rescue operation, we’re searching not only the water but the shoreline. We hope for the best and prepare for the worst.’

The senior officer said at this point all signs point to this being a horrible accident.

‘There was no collision or signs of struggle,’ he said. ‘We are using our helicopters, we are using our dive teams, we are using sonar equipment and our unmanned aerial drone team.

‘It’s extremely difficult to search this lake, it goes from depths of 40ft to 5ft.

‘Visibility in the daytime is 8 to 10 inches. At nighttime it’s zero. Everywhere you see a buoy on the lake is a low part.

‘There’s full-grown trees and debris under the lake. It’s been a couple years since someone drowned here in Lake Piru, that an accident’s happened in the lake, but it has happened before,’ he said.