Police now say foul play is involved in the disappearance of 36-year-old Chantel Brooks, and they are moving with urgency.
Story Snapshot
- Fairfield police say evidence points to foul play in Brooks’s disappearance.
- Investigators served dozens of warrants and ran wide-area ground and drone searches.
- Brooks was last seen near a Fairfield CVS after leaving work in San Francisco on July 17.
- Her black 2021 Infiniti SUV pinged a license plate camera in Oakland and is still missing.
Police Declare Foul Play After Intensive Search Push
Fairfield Police Department leaders said their investigation shows foul play in the disappearance of Chantel Brooks, a 36-year-old from Fairfield who vanished in mid-July. Lieutenant Kelly Rombach said detectives continue to work the case and based their conclusion on what they have learned so far.
The department served dozens of search warrants, ran coordinated ground searches with rescue teams, and flew grid-based drone sweeps across targeted areas. Detectives also partnered with the Solano County District Attorney’s Office to support next steps.
Police also asked the public to share tips linked to the case number and to watch for Brooks’s vehicle and known identifiers. That kind of open call often follows a large round of warrants, when leads spread across multiple cities.
The goal is simple: find the car, map the path, and find any witnesses who saw the driver past the last confirmed sighting. The faster those puzzle pieces come in, the sooner detectives can lock down a timeline.
The Last Known Movements And The Missing SUV
Investigators said Brooks left her San Francisco job on Eddy Street late on July 16 and appeared hours later near a CVS in Fairfield. The last confirmed image shows her walking toward her vehicle in the East Travis Boulevard lot at about 1:45 a.m. on July 17.
After that, police tracked her black 2021 Infiniti sport utility vehicle to a license plate camera hit in Oakland. The car has not been recovered, which adds urgency to the search for both vehicle and driver.
Automated license plate cameras capture plates at fixed points and alert when a plate is tied to a case. Agencies use these systems to thread vehicle routes and determine where to pull over for more video or to talk to neighbors.
Public safety manuals show that a license plate hit can focus a chaotic case into a block-by-block canvas when hours matter. In many missing-person cases, the vehicle path provides the first real break.
Why The Foul-Play Call Often Comes Before Public Proof
Police usually shift to a foul-play track when a person vanishes outside their routine and early checks raise red flags. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) training guides say that when a body is not found, teams rebuild a victim’s patterns, spending, calls, and travel to spot where the routine breaks.
That is when detectives fan out to execute warrants and conduct searches, as Fairfield did here. The approach may look aggressive, but it protects evidence and preserves time.
Local reports say Fairfield police have not released the specific facts behind their conclusion. That can frustrate the public, but it also keeps critical details from being tainted while leads develop.
The better standard respects both speed and accuracy: work fast, speak carefully, and release only what helps find the person or advance the case.
Timeline Discipline, Community Help, And What Comes Next
The clearest next steps are tight timeline work and community eyes on the road. Police will pull video near the CVS and along main routes from Fairfield to Oakland.
Detectives will request more license plate data, review cell site maps, and check financial and digital activity that shows spikes or stops around July 17. Those steps often turn a blur into a single door to knock on. One clerk’s memory or one porch camera can close a mile-wide gap.
Police in Fairfield, California, said they believe "foul play" is involved in the disappearance of 36-year-old Chantel Brooks, who went missing a month ago after she left her work at a hotel in San Francisco. https://t.co/0OvAIL83Y9
— ABC News (@ABC) August 19, 2026
Families and neighbors can help by sharing verified flyers, checking private cameras for the early morning hours of July 17, and calling in even small details that felt odd at the time. The case remains an active missing person investigation.
Police emphasized they are working with prosecutors and will keep pushing until they find Brooks or the evidence that explains what happened. That focus is the right one: find the person, follow the facts, and let the evidence lead.
Sources:
abcnews.com, abc7news.com, instagram.com
