Missing California nursing student Michelle Hoang Thi Le likely victim of homicide: police

Authorities fear that a northe Califoia nursing student who mysteriously disappeared last month has been killed.

Michelle Hoang Thi Le vanished May 27 after leaving a  class at the Kaiser Hospital in Hayward, east of Oakland.

Hayward Police Capt. Darryl McAllister said a forensic examination of Le's car and the parking garage where the vehicle was found, video evidence from the garage and cell phone records have led them to believe the 26-year-old was slain.

"My heart goes out to this family for dealing with this ordeal to begin with - anyone who's loved one suddenly ends up missing under very suspicious circumstances," he said. "What the family goes through in those times trying to find answers ... is agonizing."

Police are keeping details of what they found under wraps, but confirmed the evidence points conclusively to homicide. Investigators were searching remote areas of Alameda County for Le's body.

"We do believe someone specifically intended to go after Michelle," McAllister said, according to the Oakland Tribune.

Le, a student at Samuel Merritt University's Hayward campus, was considered "an intelligent, beautiful, polite person who is very excited about her career of becoming a nurse," school spokeswoman Elizabeth Valente told the San Francisco Chronicle last month.

Despite evidence suggesting the nursing student was the victim of foul play, her relatives are not giving up hope. They have raised the reward for information leading to her safe retu to $65,000.

"The family believes Michelle is alive," relatives said on a website tracking search efforts. "Don't give up hope everyone. We're still going to keep at it."