Post by mysticsnowangel on May 22, 2006 20:26:57 GMT -5
Authorities in the search for missing college student Brooke Wilberger are focusing on searches of specific locales, after abandoning mass searches in the first weeks of the case.
It is a gritty search on a trail long grown cold; one where the police know they are most likely looking for a corpse.
"We don't have a lot of good information," said Peggy Peirson, one of the sheriff's incident commanders directing the effort. "We really don't know what happened to her."
Each weekday at 8 a.m., in a windowless room inside the Corvallis police station, dubbed "The Bullpen" by detectives, an investigative task force is convened by Corvallis police Detective Shawn Houck. Modern computer technology plays a role in the search along with old-fashioned gumshoe digging.
More than 500 individuals have been "looked at" in Wilberger's disappearance, according to Lt. Ron Noble,. At one time or another, up to two dozen males have been on what police call a "persons of interest" list. None of them has been charged in the Wilberger case, although one, Sung Koo Kim, has been labeled a suspect. He is in jail in Portland on unrelated charges of burglary and theft.
Mike Morrowis Peirson's boss and head of the county's search operation. Morrow, 37, clings to hope that Wilberger is still alive and can be found and returned to her family.
"It often comes up in my dreams," Morrow said. "Off in the woods I find her -- alive."
Despite the odds against finding an abduction victim alive months after the disappearance, Morrow and other law enforcement individuals insist they haven't lost hope.
To be sure, statistical research on missing young people isn't on their side.
Statistics show that in child abductions, teen abductions and stranger abductions, the victims are slain within three or four hours from the time they are abducted, according to Maurice Godwin, an expert on psychological profiling of predatory criminals and author of the book, "Hunting Serial Predators." Police are convinced Wilberger was abducted.
She vanished between 10 and 11 a.m. while working outside an apartment complex next to the Oregon State University campus, across the road from Reser Stadium, police said. She was visiting some of her family who managed the complex. Wilberger, raised in Veneta, was on summer break from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
Between the day of Wilberger's disappearance, May 24, and June 5, approximately 3,870 acres were combed by hundreds of volunteers for any sign of the teenager, according to Morrow's records. Included were areas of heavy brush, and forested land, much of it not far from the apartment complex where she was last seen.
"We were burning people out," Morrow said of the massive search effort.
By mid-June, Morrow had turned to a more focused method of searching.
"We're looking for evidence in three broad areas," he said, "a camp site, a cabin, a burial site."
Now smaller teams of a half-dozen or so searchers will key in on likely areas in daily searches. The search teams are frequently in the field, as they were recently in the Monroe area of Benton County. At other times, Morrow and Peirson take off on their own.
"We try to work as fast as we can and still be effective in our search," he said.
Aerial photography and powerful mapping software of the Corvallis area back up their efforts, Morrow said.
On occasion, hot information can propel law enforcement officers to dash to a suspected site rather than calling in search and rescue. That happened on June 16, for example, when the Summerlake Park area of northwest Tigard was combed for signs of Wilberger. Nothing was found.
"Oftentimes, it's somewhat predictable where the body will be dumped," said Michael St. John, 40, a fire department captain in Northern California's Marin County, where he heads search and rescue operations.
St. John conducts seminars on tracking missing young people. He has talked with Morrow and Peirson about the Wilberger mystery, as have a few individuals associated with the kidnapping case of Elizabeth Smart, then 14, from her Salt Lake City bedroom in June 2002. She was found safe about nine months later.
It is a gritty search on a trail long grown cold; one where the police know they are most likely looking for a corpse.
"We don't have a lot of good information," said Peggy Peirson, one of the sheriff's incident commanders directing the effort. "We really don't know what happened to her."
Each weekday at 8 a.m., in a windowless room inside the Corvallis police station, dubbed "The Bullpen" by detectives, an investigative task force is convened by Corvallis police Detective Shawn Houck. Modern computer technology plays a role in the search along with old-fashioned gumshoe digging.
More than 500 individuals have been "looked at" in Wilberger's disappearance, according to Lt. Ron Noble,. At one time or another, up to two dozen males have been on what police call a "persons of interest" list. None of them has been charged in the Wilberger case, although one, Sung Koo Kim, has been labeled a suspect. He is in jail in Portland on unrelated charges of burglary and theft.
Mike Morrowis Peirson's boss and head of the county's search operation. Morrow, 37, clings to hope that Wilberger is still alive and can be found and returned to her family.
"It often comes up in my dreams," Morrow said. "Off in the woods I find her -- alive."
Despite the odds against finding an abduction victim alive months after the disappearance, Morrow and other law enforcement individuals insist they haven't lost hope.
To be sure, statistical research on missing young people isn't on their side.
Statistics show that in child abductions, teen abductions and stranger abductions, the victims are slain within three or four hours from the time they are abducted, according to Maurice Godwin, an expert on psychological profiling of predatory criminals and author of the book, "Hunting Serial Predators." Police are convinced Wilberger was abducted.
She vanished between 10 and 11 a.m. while working outside an apartment complex next to the Oregon State University campus, across the road from Reser Stadium, police said. She was visiting some of her family who managed the complex. Wilberger, raised in Veneta, was on summer break from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
Between the day of Wilberger's disappearance, May 24, and June 5, approximately 3,870 acres were combed by hundreds of volunteers for any sign of the teenager, according to Morrow's records. Included were areas of heavy brush, and forested land, much of it not far from the apartment complex where she was last seen.
"We were burning people out," Morrow said of the massive search effort.
By mid-June, Morrow had turned to a more focused method of searching.
"We're looking for evidence in three broad areas," he said, "a camp site, a cabin, a burial site."
Now smaller teams of a half-dozen or so searchers will key in on likely areas in daily searches. The search teams are frequently in the field, as they were recently in the Monroe area of Benton County. At other times, Morrow and Peirson take off on their own.
"We try to work as fast as we can and still be effective in our search," he said.
Aerial photography and powerful mapping software of the Corvallis area back up their efforts, Morrow said.
On occasion, hot information can propel law enforcement officers to dash to a suspected site rather than calling in search and rescue. That happened on June 16, for example, when the Summerlake Park area of northwest Tigard was combed for signs of Wilberger. Nothing was found.
"Oftentimes, it's somewhat predictable where the body will be dumped," said Michael St. John, 40, a fire department captain in Northern California's Marin County, where he heads search and rescue operations.
St. John conducts seminars on tracking missing young people. He has talked with Morrow and Peirson about the Wilberger mystery, as have a few individuals associated with the kidnapping case of Elizabeth Smart, then 14, from her Salt Lake City bedroom in June 2002. She was found safe about nine months later.