Uniontown, Ohio – About 1,400 volunteers searched neighborhoods, farm fields and woods Thursday for a woman, nine months pregnant, who disappeared from her rural home last week.
“I think every single rock will be turned over on this search,” said organizer Tim Miller, who runs the internationally active search team Texas EquuSearch.
Miller had expected about 200 volunteers Thursday and said he was a bit overwhelmed by the turnout. His team also brought in sonar equipment to check ponds and a remote-control airplane equipped with a camera to look for any sign of the missing woman, Jessie Davis.
Davis’ younger sister, Whitney Davis, wore a T-shirt with her sister’s picture and the word “Missing” in red letters.
“They’re going to help us find Jessie, hopefully, bring her back safe,” she said.
Jessie Davis, whose baby is due July 3, was last heard from in a phone call with her mother June 13. Two days later, her mother checked on her home and found it in shambles, with the furniture overturned, a comforter missing and her 2-year- old grandson wandering around alone.
The little boy told investigators: “Mommy was crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy’s in a rug.”
“We’re holding on to that hope that maybe she’s still alive out there,” Miller said Wednesday. “That would be the greatest thing in the world, but realistically, we know after a period of time that that normally doesn’t happen.”
Cadaver dogs were sent to areas where they picked up on some odors, but nothing had been found by midafternoon, Miller said.
“A lot of times they’ll pick up on something that’s not there,” he said.
Miller started EquuSearch after his 16-year-old daughter, Laura, disappeared in Texas; she was found dead 17 months later.
Funded through donations, the group offers search-and-rescue training and uses specialized search equipment to help recover human remains around the world and search for missing children. The group has worked on hundreds of missing-persons cases.
