BARRON, Wis. — Investigators are assessing several items that volunteers found Tuesday during an expanded search for clues that might lead to a missing 13-year-old Wisconsin girl whose parents were killed, but none of them yet seem to be linked to her disappearance, a sheriff said.
Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald released a statement on Facebook thanking the 2,000 volunteers who spent the day walking through swamps, cornfields and woods in chilly weather to help find Jayme Closs, who is believed to have been abducted.
Fitzgerald said authorities had received over 1,400 tips as of Tuesday and had closed 1,100 of them while continuing to work the others. Some of those tips led authorities to conduct Tuesday’s expanded search. People from in and around the Closs family’s hometown of Barron and as far away as the Minneapolis area, about 80 miles to the southwest, heeded the call for volunteer help.
After being instructed to proceed slowly, to yell “Stop!” if they see anything and to wait for the authorities to come check it out, volunteers fanned out in lines to search marshes, wooded areas and fields. Video posted on Twitter by a KMSP-TV reporter showed searchers walking in a grid pattern, using the sticks to bat down tall grass and vegetation.
