Authorities hit the streets
BY JACOB JONES - The Daily World
Tuesday, March 2, 2010 2:10 PM PST
ACOB JONES | THE DAILY WORLD FBI agents and local investigators from several departments visited residents along Maple Street in McCleary on Monday.
Federal and local authorities launched a new push for clues in the disappearance of 11-year-old Lindsey Baum on Monday as teams of investigators returned to the McCleary street where she was last seen.
Like door-to-door salesmen in blue windbreakers, FBI agents and local officers spent the day systematically knocking on the doors along Maple Street, greeting many residents with questions that had been asked before.
Grays Harbor Undersheriff Rick Scott said detectives and federal agents intend to re-question many people along the neighborhood street as part of a larger review of the investigation.
“We’re not plowing any new ground,” Scott said. “We’re just going over what we’ve already done.”
Investigators are following new recommendations from the FBI Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team, which specializes in kidnapping cases across the country. Scott said the FBI team has been advising detectives since the beginning of the search, but its experts recently finished a third-party review of the investigation and offered suggestions on new approaches and follow-up interviews.
“Today was sort of the kick-off,” Scott said, later adding, “These are the techniques and these are the recommendations that have been successful (in other cases).”
Lindsey Baum went missing on June 26 while walking a short distance back home along Maple Street. She was sighted twice along the way, but investigators have found no evidence explaining how she disappeared. It was just days before her 11th birthday.
“It’s as comprehensive today as it was on June 26,” Scott said Monday, explaining that without specific evidence they must continue investigating all possibilities.
Forensic experts also conducted a final search of Lindsey’s house Friday to follow up on one of the review recommendations before her mother moved out of the area.
FBI agents teamed up with local officers from several departments Monday to make the door-to-door interviews. Scott said departments from Aberdeen, McCleary, Montesano, Lacey, Thurston County, Mason County, the State Patrol and others volunteered officers to help in the effort.
A couple dozen officers combed through the streets, stopping to chat with homeowners. Police cruisers crowded the main roads.
Scott said investigators have prioritized the expert recommendations and hope to keep the extra officers around for several days to complete the new round of interviews.
“We want to do it until it’s done,” he said.
The FBI brought in profilers, psychologists, computer technicians and many others to work on the case, Scott said. They also provided a mobile command center to serve as a clearinghouse for any information collected.
“There’s a lot of resources the FBI can bring to the table,” he said.
Some residents invited investigators inside. Others hung in the doorways as answering questions, the sessions lasting minutes or hours.
Scott said the federal review found the initial investigation very thorough, but they want to go back and see if they can turn up anything new, any small detail that might break the case.
“There’s a method to the madness,” he said. “We need the public’s understanding.”
He asked McCleary residents to continue the cooperation and support they have always offered investigators throughout the past eight months.
Standing outside his mother’s Maple Street home, David Belcher said investigators spent about three hours Monday morning interviewing him and the others at the house.
“They were really polite,” he said. “Whatever it takes, as long as they find out who did this.”
Though he lives in Central Park, Belcher said he often visits his mother and aunt in McCleary to help them around the house. It was the second time he had been interviewed for the case.
“(This time was) more thorough,” he said. “They really spent a lot more time on it.”
“Somebody had to have seen something,” he added.
Scott said some residents have questioned the redundancy of the second, or in some cases third or fourth, interviews. But he said few were caught off guard or upset.
“The community kind of knew something was going to happen,” he said. “Now they’re seeing what they heard was coming.”
Scott said investigators hope to build some momentum over the next several days and have plans in place to follow up on any potential break-throughs in the case.
“We’re going to go at this for as long as it takes,” he said.
Maybe body language is being filmed or observed ?
