Finding the Sabrinahouse

Note: the mystery was solved on 20 April 2003 by Sabrina herself when she phoned the Sabrina Site. See the page describing
First contact with Sabrina .

See a satellite photo of Sabrina's neighbourhood.

According to the LA Dept of City Planning, the last owner change was 19 December 1984.

Congratulations to Michael (who's now in the Sabrina Hall of Fame for nearly picking her address before it was officially verified. From half a world away, it's a great achievement.)

Inspired by the article in the Mail On Sunday, I became determined to discover the exact residential address of Sabrina. Small clues in the article led to intensive investigation of available internet tools, including White Pages and internet mapping software.

I don't know exactly why finding the address will be useful, considering Sabrina has not replied to any letters sent to her via Fiona Wingett, co-author of the MoS article, and Sabrina is reputedly reluctant to open the door even if we stumbled upon it... but...

[Page modified December 2014 to remove clues as to the actual address]

THIS IS THE STORY

Does anyone know beautiful downtown North Hollywood better than I don't? It might be Lankershim Blvd, Burbank Blvd or Tujunga Av, North Hollywood, LA. Dunno. Only guessing! This all assumes she has the phone connected!

Michael T did his own sleuthing and suggests:

"I picked up on the name of Sabrina's neighbour, Mary Reid, and got another potential lead. If you go to whitepages.com and do a reverse lookup on "reid" in " North Hollywood, CA" you get 21 results. Of these, none live on Burbank Blvd. One of the other names caught my eye, though - Eric J. Reid of [street number] Otsego St ., North Hollywood, CA 91601. The street number is fairly close to [street number], and Otsego St. is in the same area you identified - very close to the intersection of two large motorways (although the article does mention three). There's no mention of Mary Reid, but it seems quite likely to me that the phone could be registered in the name of a husband or son, and [street number] Otsego is just over a tenth of a mile from [street number] - certainly close enough that the journalists looking to get a story on Sabrina could have interviewed somebody at this address. I've not been able to identify a name for the occupant of [street number] Otsego to confirm this, but perhaps one of your other readers will be able to do so, or lives close enough to drive past and see if the house looks identical or not?"

31 Dec 2002 : Searching North Hollywood " [street number] " (and [neighbouring numbers]- assuming American streets have even numbers on one side and odd numbers on the other) addresses at http://reversedirectory.langenberg.com/ gives some findings, but nothing useful unless Sabrina now calls herself Thelma Howard or Emily Moss

8 Feb 2003: Michael T's search for Sabrina's address continued with dogged determination... and he reported that he thinks he's nailed her address. I'd really hate to be hiding if I knew Michael were out there looking for me :-) His investigations go to show just how powerful the internet can be to find out just about anything when the searcher is Powered by Sabrina ™.

Don't get your hopes up too much, but I think I've got a better than 50% chance that I've found Sabrina's address. Several tools got me to that belief:

* The Los Angeles County Office of the Assessor http://assessormap.co.la.ca.us/mapping/viewer.asp

Lists land use, such as commercial / residential, building age, number of bedrooms, etc. Enter "[street number]" in the address field, and click enter. You'll get a list of every address at "[street number]" on any road in Los Angeles county.

* United States Postal Service
http://www.usps.com/zip4/welcome.htm?from=global&page=2132findzip

Allows you to enter a street address and zip, and be given the full address.
The "Mail on Sunday" article specifically described Sabrina's home as a "small north Hollywood house" - so I discounted any zip codes that the USPS didn't say were in North Hollywood.

I then returned to the LA County Office of the Assessor, and checked each of those zip codes. I discounted anything that was commercial property, or a multi-residence property (ie. apartments, condos, etc.) since the Mail photo clearly shows a single, detached house.

That left me with four addresses in three zip codes. The building ages, etc. are as below:

[4 possible addresses listed]

* Los Angeles Department of City Planning "Zone Information Map Access System" http://zimas.lacity.org/search.asp

This system showed features like freeway on-ramps, etc. I could discount [address] , because it was literally almost under the spaghetti intersection of the Hollywood and Ventura Freeways. I think if that had been her house, the Mail reporters would have made more comment on the freeways - plus this location would not be under the flight path for either runway at Burbank Airport. I also felt that a 4 bedroom house would be too large for a single woman with no means of income.

[Address 2] and [Address 3] are almost right next to each other. They aren't right under the freeways, but they're also not under the flightpath for either runway. They were probably built as part of the same complex, as their sizes, ages and interior rooms are identical, and they're both a bit larger than the remaining house, so I felt would be less likely again due to size.

This leaves [Address 4] . It is still near enough to the freeways to comment on them (and to suffer from the smog) - but look what else is right next to it if you go to Mapquest : [exact search has been fudged to protect Sabrina's address]

It is within *600 meters* of the end of Runway 9 at Burbank Airport, and only about 4-500 meters off the center-line. Certainly close enough to be described as "right underneath the flightpath" without needing any creative license.

Here's a satellite photo of that location, with the house indicated in red, courtesy of Microsoft's TerraServer, showing the proximity to the runway. [photo removed]

And here's the most zoomed-in satellite image I can get of the house: [image removed]

...unfortunately not quite enough to make out the style of the house and get a final confirmation

I also tried looking for photos of or around that location on Google, but didn't find too much. There were photos of the local liquor store and gun shop on [address 4] Street. From http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US&addtohistory=&address=http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US&addtohistory=&address= [street number] +vanowen&city=&state=&zipcode=91605&homesubmit=Get+Map+vanowen&city=&state=&zipcode=91605&homesubmit=Get+Map]

There are a bakery, a wrestling promoter, an adult video production company, a screen printing company, a video game store, a couple of furniture wholesalers, a furniture company, a mail-order medical supplies company and a costume rental company. That's all within ten street numbers on either side of what I believe to be Sabrina's address.

So - the end result. Like I say, I am better than 50% certain that Sabrina lives at:

[Address 4]
NORTH HOLLYWOOD CA 91605-6325
USA

More detail than you ever wanted to know, eh? ;)

Cheers

Michael

Thanks again, Michael!

10 March 2003: A Sabrina Fan wrote to say he is going to L.A. from England and will valiantly attempt to knock on the door at [Address] . Good luck, Sabrina Fan. Your country depends on you!

20 April 2003: Ummm.... Sabrina Fan. Please report in. The suggested address was not quite accurate. You might have infiltrated the wrong person!