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OFFICERS, VOLUNTEERS CONTINUE SEARCH FOR MISSING PB GIRL

By Patty Wooten/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Thursday, August 31, 2006 10:24 AM CDT

More than 100 law enforcement officers and volunteers searching the cotton and bean fields surrounding Dumas have failed to find any trace of a Pine Bluff girl who dropped out of sight after leaving a friend’s home in Pickens early Sunday morning.

“So far, we haven’t come up with one shred of evidence,” Desha County Sheriff Don Smith said Wednesday afternoon, the third day of a ground and air search for 17-year-old Casey Crowder.

“We’re going to keep up the ground search through Thursday,” Smith said. “If we don’t find anything I’ll probably terminate the ground search but we’ll keep interviewing people and following leads.”

Crowder, a senior at Watson Chapel High School, reportedly ran out of gas on her way home to Pine Bluff from Pickens, a small farming community south of Dumas.

Her vehicle was found abandoned on U.S. 65 near the new Dumas hospital. The gas tank was empty, the doors were locked and the emergency flashers were turned on. The vehicle revealed no evidence of foul play, according to police.

Smith said 30 or 40 law enforcement officers and volunteers searched the farmland, breaks, and a bayou between Pickens and Lincoln County on Tuesday. More volunteers and law enforcement officers joined the search Wednesday when they combed the cotton and bean fields north and east of Dumas.

Two investigators and an FBI agent spent the day canvassing businesses along U.S. 65, from Pickens to Gould, and a volunteer from Dumas distributed flyers in Pine Bluff and Lake Village, and all the towns between, Smith said.

Crowder is described as a blond-haired, green-eyed, 17-year-old white female, about 5’1” in height, weighing about 105 pounds. Anyone with information about her disappearance is asked to contact the Desha County Sheriff’s Office at (870) 877-2327.

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