GREELEY, Colo.—Colorado authorities on Monday appealed to a missing girl to come home if she can, assuring her that she’s not in trouble.
“We want to get you back to your family, you’re not in trouble, we’re not going to put you in jail or anything like that,” Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner said more than a week after 12-year-old Kayleah Wilson was last seen.
Kayleah’s disappearance has triggered a massive search, with authorities pursuing more than 300 leads and knocking on the doors of about 1,000 homes. Police have also diverted traffic near the Greeley mall over the weekend to question drivers about whether they saw anything unusual on the day Wilson went missing.
Wilson was last seen by her mother when she left her home to walk eight to 10 blocks to a friend’s birthday in Greeley, an agricultural community on Colorado’s northern plains, about 60 miles from Denver. The FBI said that two shoppers at the nearby Greeley mall told police they saw the girl about a half hour after her mother told police she left the house March 28.
“She wasn’t carrying anything, any shopping bags or any clothes,” FBI spokesman Dave Joly said of the shoppers’ report.
Joly said police checked surveillance video at the mall but did not find anything that would help them.
Authorities don’t know if she was abducted or ran away, but say it’s possible she’s simply too frightened to return because of all the publicity her case has received.
“The possibility always exists that we frightened this young lady into, ‘Gosh, this is such a serious thing now, I’m afraid to come in,'” Garner said.
Jim Davis, special agent in charge of the Denver FBI office, announced a $10,000 reward for information, saying they believe someone may know something about Kayleah’s whereabouts but has not come forward.
“We still need the public’s help,” he said. “The fact that we are offering this reward should probably indicate that we don’t have the number of leads we’d like to have.”
Authorities said the information they’ve received from the public has lead them to pursue leads outside the state, including Nebraska and California, where Wilson’s biological father lives. The father has told investigators that his daughter has not contacted him.
Authorities have also questioned Wilson’s mother and stepfather in Greeley, and Kayleah’s 17-year-old boyfriend. Investigators say they’re all cooperating.
Davis said there’s nothing to suggest foul play, but acknowledged authorities are growing more concerned with time.
I think it’s pretty clear that the longer this thing goes, the more concerned we get about our ability to bring her home safely,” he said.
Davis has said Kayleah’s search is the top priority for the FBI’s Denver office and that he has devoted as many as 75 FBI agents to help Greeley police. The Weld County Sheriff’s office has also helped.
“We will work this thing until it is concluded, one way or the other,” he said.
Kayleah, a sixth-grader, is just over 5 feet tall, weighs 145 pounds and has brown hair and blue eyes. She had an asthma inhaler the day she went missing.
Although Wilson’s disappearance has received much attention, authorities say they still don’t have enough information to issue an Amber Alert, which notifies the public about a possible child abduction through text messages and phone calls. The information also is broadcast on television and radio stations, and posted electronically on highway signs to alert motorists.
Authorities say cases need to meet certain criteria for such alerts to be issued, including information that a child may be in danger or if a suspect has been identified. The criteria insures that that the public won’t ignore alerts because they are not broadcast often, said Lance Clem, spokesman with the Department of Public Safety, which manages the system.
Since 2002, a total of 54 Amber Alerts have been issued in Colorado involving 73 children. All but one child have been recovered, Clem said.
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Associated Press Writer P. Solomon Banda contributed reporting from Denver.
