Missing Girl: Lindsey J. Baum--WA--06/27/2009
NamUs - National Missing Persons Data System- Lindsey Baum # 2542
https://www.findthemissing.org/cases/2542Federal Bureau of Investigation Kidnapping-Lindsey Baum
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/baum_l.htm 
Friday, August 28, 2009 11:13 AM PDT
BY JACOB JONES
The Daily World
Melissa Baum, standing in front of a photo of her missing 11-year-old daughter Lindsey, tears up as she speaks to more than 40 volunteers at a community gathering outlining new search efforts.
Searchers renew their efforts
National organizations join search for missing girl
Melissa Baum struggled to describe her missing 11-year-old daughter to more than 40 potential search volunteers gathered Thursday night at the McCleary Community Center.
Lindsey loved to read, breezing through the "Twilight" books, Baum said. The 4-foot-9, brown-haired girl also spent much of her time writing, even working to write a play shortly before she disappeared from a McCleary street two months ago.
"She's just an outgoing, bright little girl," Baum said, a large photo of Lindsey smiling on the wall behind her.
Several volunteers teared up alongside Baum as she spoke at the community meeting to launch new search efforts today and throughout the weekend with support from national missing child organizations.
Coordinators from the Laura Recovery Center and the KlaasKIDS Foundation came to McCleary this weekend to rally new resources and volunteers around finding Lindsey.
"I'm thrilled," Baum said. "I'm really excited about it."
The organizations set up shop in the Community Center on Simpson Street, hanging maps, photos of Lindsey and setting up a copy machine for duplicating fliers.
Lindsey disappeared on June 26 while walking home from her friend's house just down the street. Though two neighbors spotted her within blocks of home, investigators have found no evidence explaining her disappearance.
Dawn Davis, with the Laura Recovery Center, said finding lost children takes cooperation between law enforcement, the community and the family.
"There is hope,"she said. "Kids come home every day."
Volunteers were scheduled to start registering this morning. The organizations would be leading teams through the streets passing out fliers and hanging red, white and blue ribbons in Lindsey's honor.
Davis said teams will also comb nearby neighborhoods and wooded areas, re-searching areas scoured during the first days after Lindsey went missing.
Volunteers must all be at least 18 years old, she said. They should dress appropriately with sturdy shoes. Dogs, children and weapons are prohibited.
Anyone who cannot search or walk the streets can help coordinate at the center, documenting search efforts and organizing food or equipment.
"There is something for everyone," Davis said. "There's always something you can do in the search."
Mark Klaas, whose daughter was kidnapped and killed in 1993, said the work of the KlaasKIDS Foundation and Laura Recovery Center has helped many families in recent years.
"Children have been found as a result of our efforts," he said.
Organizers said the search will go on as long as possible, starting today and stretching to Sunday if needed. Klaas encouraged the volunteers at the center to contact friends, neighbors, coworkers - anyone who could join the effort and help expand the search area.
"If we get 300 people," he said, "we'll go a lot farther than if we get 30 people."
Baum also asked anyone with private property that included large forested areas, abandoned buildings or abandoned vehicles to check their property for any sign of Lindsey.
If the owner cannot check, they can call local police or the center to have someone search the property, she said. Searchers hope to check every corner they can.
Law enforcement officials are asking anyone who might have any information about the whereabouts of Lindsey Baum to come forward with tips. Tips can be made by phone at 1-866-915-8299
The community meeting ended with a prayer, asking for a miracle. Friends moved forward to offer Baum hugs and support as Lindsey smiled down from several missing child posters.
http://www.thedailyworld.com/articles/2009/08/28/local_news/doc4a98178f6482a351140071.txt No breakthroughs in Lindsey Baum disappearance
Sep 26, 2009
By Ray Lane
KOMO News Web Staff
MCCLEARY, Wash. - Sheriff's deputies and FBI agents reported no breakthroughs Saturday in the second day of a search for clues into the mysterious disappearance of an 11-year-old McCleary girl.
Officials executed search warrants Friday at two rural properties near the small town where Lindsey Baum vanished June 26 while walking home from a friend's home. The agents continued their work at both properties on Saturday.
But as Lindsey's mother, Melissa, and other local residents waited eagerly for any news, there was no indication that the searches had turned up any evidence that could help find Lindsey or explain her disappearance.
It's been exactly three months since Lindsey went missing - an entire season has passed.
Yet a dark cloud still hangs over the town of McCleary even on a beautiful, warm fall day.
Flyers and posters with her picture on it remain plastered all over town. Marquee boards at the school still have a reminder that Lindsey is not forgotten.
And about a mile and a half southwest of McCleary there is now a law enforcement checkpoint, where only residents can get by.
It is down this road that local and federal agents served a search warrant at a home and a nearby property on Friday, beginning an exhaustive investigation at both locations.
A team from the Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Department, the King County Sheriff's Department and the FBI has set up a mobile command post, as they comb through the house, land and even cars for potential evidence.
Officials say tips by citizens - deemed "credible information" - led them to the 11-acre property nestled in the woods.
The owners are said to be cooperating with investigators. But no one's been arrested, and there's currently no "person of interest."
The renewed police activity this weekend in relation to Lindsey's disappearance has residents in this small town wondering if answers will soon emerge.
"I have kids and grandkids myself," says David Norris, a local resident. "I know it would just tear me up if I had to wait. I think even though you hate to think of her being out there in the ground someplace, it would still bring closure."
Lindsey was last seen between 9 and 10 p.m. June 26 when she left her friend's home on Maple Street, where she had been visiting.
Lindsey was going to walk the four blocks to her home on Mommsen Road, which is roughly a 10-minute walk. But something happened in that short distance - Lindsey never arrived home.
Next weekend another all-out search is scheduled in the area, with volunteers set to help out Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
http://www.komonews.com/news/61962227.html Family Says They Are Unfairly Targeted In McCleary Search
Posted: 4:29 pm PDT September 28, 2009Updated: 7:40 pm PDT September 28, 2009
OLYMPIA, Wash. -- After two days of intense searching at a home and property outside McCleary, investigators said it appears they found no significant evidence that will help find 11-year-old Lindsey Baum.
The owner of the property told KIRO 7 reporter Richard Thompson that heâ€
s contacted a lawyer about suing the police and the media, saying they had no right to put the family through the search.
Baumâ€
s mother said she is disappointed that nothing was found relating to her daughter, who has been missing for three months.
"I was obviously really hoping something would come from the search," said Melissa Baum.
Law enforcement sources told KIRO 7 that among the evidence collected during the search were condoms and pornographic magazines. A car was also seized and will undergo further forensic testing.
The homeowner of the property said his family has been unfairly targeted in the search, "they didn't find anything here because we didn't do anything to that little girl."
Relatives confirm a man at the house was the focus of the investigation and search. One of his relatives said, "the only reason they were doing this search is, he gave a wrong answer to a question by a detective on the telephone."
Detectives insisted Monday they were acting on credible evidence when they got the search warrant for the property on Friday.
Lindsey's mother said she understands the family's frustration, but her daughter's life is at stake.
"If they end up being completely innocent, I'm sorry. But at the same time, my daughter is missing," she said.
Lindsey disappeared June 26 while walking home from a friendâ€
s house.
http://www.kirotv.com/news/21142578/detail.htmlhttp://lindseybaum.com/ State apologizes for letter sent to missing girl's mom
Sep 29, 2009
By TIM HAECK
KIRO Radio
As she marked three months since her daughter vanished, Melissa Baum of McCleary got a disturbing letter from the state.
She was informed her ex-husband would no longer be required to pay child support for eleven year old Lindsey, because her child hadn't been home for three months.
"I still have to maintain a house for her, I still have to maintain a life for her. This is not a normal case. She is a child that has been abducted, she's missing." Baum said on Tuesday.
State child support spokesman Adolpho Capenstany says the letter sent to Melissa Baum was a form letter that routinely goes out after 90-days of a child being out of the home and he admits it should not have been sent in this case. "It's not a procedure that we would instigate in the manner it was, and it's also insensitive to a very difficult situation regarding a missing child." Capenstany said.
http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=218867 Why McCleary Man Is Person Of Interest In Missing Girl Case
Posted: 4:05 pm PDT October 2, 2009
Updated: 4:26 pm PDT October 2, 2009
MCCLEARY, Wash. -- Court documents released Friday revealed what led police to consider a McCleary man a person of interest in the disappearance of 11-year-old Lindsey Baum.
Police last week searched a home where the man lives to look for evidence in the case.
According to a search warrant affidavit prepared by prosecutors, the man gave four different stories about his whereabouts the night Baum disappeared.
Police said the man exhibited strange behavior, including a disturbing statement he made to a friend the day after Baum disappeared.
"A friend said that he thought she had been kidnapped, killed and cut-up, as I recall," said Sgt. Steve Shumate of the Grays Harbor Sheriff's Office.
The documents also indicated a car similar to the one the man drives was seen nearby at the time of Lindsey's disappearance. Friends said the man was obsessed with the case and that he was pulled over by police after following Lindsey's Baum's mother through town.
The sheriff's office said it knows the search was hard on the family that lives in the home, but deputies said they are "doing everything in our power and our legal authority to find Lindsey Baum."
The man's family said police found nothing of significance during the search because the man is innocent.
A family member told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporter Richard Thompson that the man "didn't do it."
"When he does talk about it, he cries because he's not that kind of a person," said the family member who did not want to be identified.
Lindsey Baum disappeared on June 26 during a walk home from her friend's house.
http://www.kirotv.com/news/21186766/detail.html http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=220410List of seized items released in missing girl case
By TIM HAECK
KIRO Radio
10/02/2009
A McCleary landowner has done what the sheriff will not: release a list of items seized in the investigation of a missing girl.
The property owner is angry over the search of his acreage just south of town last week and has threatened to sue. On a website devoted to discussion of true crime, a posting displays a copy of a search warrant seeking evidence of a kidnapping. It lists dozens of items confiscated during the search: computers, a rifle, used condoms, discarded clothing, and some marijuana, among other things.
Nobody has been arrested and the Grays Harbor County Sheriff has declined to call the property owner a suspect in the disappearance of 11-year-old Lindsey Baum.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009991853_apwamissingmcclearygirl.htmlDetective thinks missing Wash. girl was kidnapped
A detective's affidavit indicates he believes a missing 11-year-old McCleary girl was kidnapped and sheds light on why Grays Harbor County sheriff's officers recently served search warrants on properties linked to a McCleary man.
October 2, 2009
By The Associated Press
MCCLEARY, Wash. -
A detective's affidavit indicates he believes a missing 11-year-old McCleary girl was kidnapped and sheds light on why Grays Harbor County sheriff's officers recently served search warrants on properties linked to a McCleary man.
The affidavit filed in District Court says the man's conflicting stories about his whereabouts on the night Lindsey Baum disappeared were among the factors that led to issuance of the search warrants.
According to the document, the man also made a disturbing statement to a friend the day after Baum disappeared, saying he could not believe a girl had been "taken and cut up and dismembered." The detective notes that investigators didn't believe the girl was a crime victim until the week after her disappearance.
The man's family says authorities found nothing of significance during the searches because the man is innocent. The sheriff's office is not identifying the man. The court papers were made public Friday.
Lindsey Baum disappeared the night of June 26 while walking home from a friend's house.
http://www.katu.com/news/local/63453217.htmlPolice probe conflicting alibis in Baum case
Story Published: Oct 3, 2009 at 3:20 PM PDT
Story Updated: Oct 3, 2009 at 4:21 PM PDT
By Keith Eldridge, Fisher Communications
MCCLEARY, Wash. -- A man's conflicting stories to acquaintances were among the factors that led to the issuance of a search warrant in the Lindsey Baum case, according to an affidavit in support of the warrant obtained by KATU news partner KOMO News in Seattle.
The court documents identify as a person of interest a man connected to the properties searched last week.
Writing in the affidavit filed in Grays Harbor County Superior Court, a detective said he believed Lindsey had been kidnapped and that evidence would be found at the properties.
Lindsey disappeared the evening of June 26 while walking home from a friend's house in the small mill town of McCleary.
According to the affidavit, a person contacted investigators more than a month after the girl disappeared with information that led detectives to identify the man as a person of interest.
The tipster said the man always drove a distinctive car with a loud exhaust, and found it suspicious that the man stopped driving the vehicle after Lindsey disappeared.
Another person told detectives that they saw the vehicle near where Lindsey was last seen the night she vanished.
One person told police the man acted strangely after the night of Lindsey's disappearance and seemed to disappear himself.
"(The person said) that his behavior had changed since the day of the disappearance. He had not come around as much," said Sgt. Steve Shumate with the Grays Harbor Sheriff's Office.
But what really sparked the detective's interest is what the young man allegedly told his girlfriend the day after Lindsey disappeared.
"(He) told her he could not believe that a girl had been taken and cut up and dismembered," according to the search warrant.
At that point, however, even detectives didn't believe Lindsey had been a victim of a crime.
"The media and investigators did not believe that Baum was a victim of a crime until the week following her disappearance," the document said.
"For somebody to make a statement of that nature the following day of this disappearance, it is very unusual," Shumate said.
Detectives have not found any evidence to indicate the missing girl is no longer alive.
According to the court document, detectives have received multiple conflicting statements about where the person of interest was on the night of June 26.
Investigators wrote that the man told them he was working a second job at the time, but the business told detectives he hadn't
been there in weeks.
KOMO News is not naming the man since he has not been arrested.
The search warrants were served Sept. 25 at several properties in the McCleary area.
At one site, FBI investigators in protective clothing were probing an area near an old, abandoned house and large shed about one mile southwest of McCleary.
Among the Items seized were two sex toys, several used condoms, a bag of children's clothing, computers, bed sheets, blankets, and a newspaper with a story about Lindsey.
Anxious mother, searchers not giving up hope
Back at search headquarters, waiting is torture for Lindsey's mother, Melissa Baum. But on Friday, Melissa was hopeful after learning police have a person of interest.
"I'm hoping they'll find her and give her back," she said.
Three months and one week after her 11-year-old daughter vanished on her walk home, locals are determined not to let up on the hunt for clues.
"It could happen to anyone, and (I) hope they'd be there for me, too," said Rebecca Watts.
Volunteers from all over the region, from Packwood to Seattle have joined in the search. Jen Page is a mother who drove 90 miles to help look for Lindsey.
"I can easily imagine how how hard it is, and this is the least I can do," she said.
Searchers plan to continue looking for the missing girl throughout the weekend.
Some staff members of "The Oprah Show" met with Melissa Baum on Friday, but it is not yet known for certain whether the case will receive national coverage.
http://www.examiner.com/x-1168-Crime-Examiner~y2009m10d4-Warrant-in-Lindsey-Baum-case-Local-man-acts-suspicious-no-alibi-past-sex-abuse-allegationsWarrant in Lindsey Baum case: Local man acts suspicious, no alibi, past sex abuse allegations
October 4, 7:47 PM
Crime Examiner - Cindy Adams
On Sept. 25, police in McCleary, Wash. began serving search warrants in their quest to find missing girl, Lindsey Baum.
Lindsey disappeared three months ago while walking home from a friendâ's home on a Friday evening.
The Daily World reports that certain inconsistent statements and suspicious activity led them to a particular home during their investigation.
One warrant contained statements from family and friends of a man whose disturbing conversations regarding Lindsey, odd phone activity, past accusations of sexual assault, and conflicting alibis, sparked the interest of detectives.
Although police say their search of the man's home garnered no evidence of wrongdoing, testing of forensic samples taken at the home and a neighboring property on Sept. 25, could take months.
According to the World, the search warrant also listed dozens of items law enforcement hoped to find, such as weapons, cars, and clothing that may match Lindsey's.
According to the warrant, the man "told [a friend] he could not believe that a girl had been taken and cut up and dismembered."
The same man is also a suspect in an alleged attempted rape in 2000 when he was a teenager. According to the World, he allowed several children to watch pornography and then barricaded a 12-year-old girl in a room, attempting to rape her.
Lindsey's mother also reported to police that the man had followed her. He told police he was watching her because he thought she was acting suspicious. A car that closely matched the man's was reportedly spotted near the location Lindsey disappeared and he worked part-time at a business Lindsey frequented.
On the evening of Lindsey's disappearance, the man told police he was at his second job, but his boss told investigators he had been suspended - thus, he couldn't have been working during that time. Police confronted him with that fact, to which he gave them another alibi, which could not be verified.
The warrant stated the man's story was â"contrary to the pattern of cell phone usage shown in [his] cell phone records. He normally has frequent cell phone activity until at least midnight or 1 a.m. each day."
Lindsey Baum is 4-foot-9 with brown eyes and brown hair. She was wearing a blue shirt and jeans when she disappeared.
Anyone who might have any information about the whereabouts of Lindsey Baum should call 1-866-915-8299 or via e-mail
soadmin@co.grays-harbor.wa.us. Information may also be mailed to PO Box 305 McCleary, 98557.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/lindsey-baum-missing-months-disappearance/story?id=8744233Cops' Search in Lindsey Baum Case Comes Up Empty
Police Served Warrants, but Found No Evidence of Missing Girl
By DEAN SCHABNER
Oct. 4, 2009
Volunteers gathered in McCleary, Wash., this weekend to hunt for any trace of Lindsey Baum, the 11-year-old girl who has been missing for more than three months. Police acknowledged they are looking for new leads after a search failed to link a possible suspect to the girl's disappearance.
There was no evidence that clearly indicated that the people and the individual we were looking at had anything to do with her disappearance," Undersheriff Rick Scott, of the Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Department, one of the agencies investigating the girl's disappearance, told ABCNews.com. "Having served these warrants, we found nothing, so we're pursuing other leads."
The affidavit for the warrants, which were released Friday and were served on Sept. 25, indicated that there were discrepancies in the alibi of the person police were looking at, a man who works at a retirement home near where Lindsey, who should have started sixth grade this fall, was last seen.
According to the affidavit, from Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Department Det. Matt Organ, police originally wanted to talk to the man because a person called and said his car, a small white sports car with a loud exhaust, was seen in the area the night of Lindsey's disappearance and then was not seen around for several days afterwards, which the tipster considered suspicious.
When police contacted the possible suspect, according to the affidavit, he told them he was working a second job at a youth camp that night, but a supervisor at the camp told police he was in fact not there and had been suspended two weeks earlier.
Police also became suspicious when they spoke to a former girlfriend of the man, who told them that the day after Lindsey's disappearance he said he was very concerned that something like that could happen in the town, the affidavit said.
Sibling Squabble Separated Lindsey From Her Brother Night of Disappearance
The man allegedly told the woman "he could not believe that a girl had been taken and cut up and dismembered," the affidavit said.
At that point, however, police were still treating the disappearance as a missing person case and had said nothing about suspecting foul play, according to the affidavit.
The man was the most recent in a series of people who police have looked closely at in the case, Scott said.
There's been a lot of different people who had our attention and might have been called persons of interest," he said. "It might have been a matter of hours or a matter of days. The case where we served these warrants was just like that, but after having looked at what was found, we are pursuing other leads."
Lindsey disappeared the evening of June 26, somewhere along the 10-minute walk down a densely populated suburban street between her house and a friend's.
Lindsey's mother, Melissa Baum, told ABCNews.com days after the disappearance that she last saw her daughter when Lindsey, along with her 12-year-old brother, Josh, headed out to Lindsey's friend's house in hopes she could get permission to spend the night at the Baum's house.
Baum said her children began squabbling over the use of Josh's bike on the way there and were stopped by a family friend who sent Josh home to end the argument. Lindsey continued on to her friend's house. When Lindsey's friend found out she couldn't stay the night, Lindsey headed for home around 9:30 p.m.
"When she wasn't home by 10, I started to get nervous," Baum said, adding that 10 p.m. is the curfew for her children.
She began calling Lindsey's cell phone, only to find that her daughter had left it plugged into the charger. Initially thinking that her daughter must have met up with friends in the neighborhood, Baum set out on foot to find her.
Lindsey Last Spotted Mere Blocks From Her Home at 9:30 p.m.
But there was no sign of her. Eventually, her friend's parents joined the search by car. Baum even let her daughter's beloved German shepherd, Kadence, off its leash in hopes the dog would help find her. Finally, around 10:45 p.m., Baum said she called the police.
At the time, Scott said there were a few businesses located just off the street Lindsey would have used to get home, and while the girl did not appear in any of the videos, police received clues about who was in the area at the time she disappeared.
Scott said witnesses were able to put Lindsey within a couple of blocks of her house just after 9:30 p.m. The last person reported to have seen her, he said, was a neighbor on her way to work.
Baum described her daughter as outgoing, talkative and mature for her age. She loved to read and write, and had big plans for her future.
"She insisted when she grows up she's going to be an author and an illustrator and a veterinarian," Baum said.
Lindsey was 10 at the time she disappeared, and her mother said she was looking forward to celebrating her 11th birthday July 7.
At the search headquarters Friday, Baum told ABC News Seattle affiliate KOMO-TV that she became hopeful after learning police have a person of interest.
"I'm hoping they'll find her and give her back," she said.
Volunteers from McCleary and all over the region came to join the most recent search, which began Friday and continued through today.
"I can easily imagine how how hard it is, and this is the least I can do," Jen Page, a mother who drove 90 miles to help look for Lindsey, told KOMO-TV.
Scott said that though police have kept their efforts separate from the volunteers', investigators welcome the help.
"We're encouraging everyone, hunters in the woods, to have their head on the swivle to look for evidence of Lindsey and her disappearance," he said. "We're at the same time continuing our criminal investigation."
http://www.theolympian.com/672/story/1021596.html?storylink=omni_popularAfter four months, authorities have little evidence in Lindsey Baum case
JEREMY PAWLOSKI; The Olympian | • Published October 31, 2009
MCCLEARY – Police Chief George Crumb said he used to look out his office window from the police station on Summit Road and see Lindsey Baum walking with her regular group of friends.
“She was pretty much a daily fixture of the area,” Crumb said of Lindsey, who was 10 when she went missing not two blocks from the police station as she walked to her home from a friend’s June 26. “She seemed to be, you could even say, the leader of the little group.”
Before she disappeared, Crumb thought nothing of noticing Lindsey - in this small town of about 1,500, all the locals know the neighborhood children by name.
“It wasn’t unusual to see her along with everything else,” Crumb said.
As summer has turned to fall, more than four months have passed with no sign of what happened to Lindsey. Residents say the girl’s absence, and the fear of what might have happened to her, have the entire town hurting.
“I totally think it’s affected the whole town,” Diana Hasbrouck, co-owner of Rain Country Restaurant, said between serving customers Wednesday, standing with a half-full pot of coffee in one hand. “See the streets right now?” she added, gesturing toward the empty sidewalks outside the restaurant. “That’s the way it’s been all summer.”
McCleary no longer is a town where people leave their doors unlocked, said Willa Smith-Creamer, a cook at the restaurant.
“People are more apt to keep their kids inside now,” said Smith-Creamer, 33, a lifelong McCleary resident. “I used to leave my doors unlocked all the time, and now I don’t.”
The weekend of Lindsey’s disappearance, the McCleary Police Department’s four-officer force gave way to detectives with the Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office who are now in charge of the investigation, supplemented by FBI agents from Seattle.
The investigation has been thwarted at every turn by a lack of physical evidence and no clues about how Lindsey disappeared.
Lindsey vanished after leaving a friend’s home on Maple Street by herself shortly before 9:15 p.m. to make the half-mile walk across town to the home she shared with her mother, Melissa, and 12-year-old brother, Josh, on Mommsen Road.
The last confirmed sighting of Lindsey was about 9:15 p.m., when a resident driving through town saw her walking on Maple Street between Fifth and Sixth streets – about the halfway point of her journey home.
At first, investigators explored the possibility that Lindsey had run away from home or that she might have been hiding in the woods after a dispute with her brother over a bicycle. That possibility soon was ruled out.
“Certainly, someone facilitated her disappearance,” Grays Harbor County Undersheriff Rick Scott said during an interview in his office in Montesano, about 18 miles west of McCleary. “We believe that she was taken. We believe her to be the victim of foul play.”
MANY TIPS, FEW CLUES
Scott said investigators have slogged through thousands of leads and tips. There have been eight to 12 “persons of interest” at various points during the investigation, but none panned out, he said.
And the tips keep coming. Chief Crumb stood in the reception area at the McCleary police station Wednesday. He was the only one there to answer the phone, and he jotted down information from a tipster as he cradled the phone between his shoulder and head.
“Well, there’s been no suspects; there’s been people of interest,” he told the caller.
Crumb said any tip the department gets about Lindsey’s disappearance is forwarded immediately to Grays Harbor County Detective Polly Davin, who is assigned full time to the case.
Tips come in all the time, Crumb said, but many are vague or of little to no evidentiary value. For example, Crumb said, someone walking in the woods notified police after discovering a shoe, thinking it might have been Lindsey’s. It turned out to be the wrong size and appeared to have “been out there forever,” Crumb said.
AMATEUR SLEUTHS
Crumb and Scott said the case has drawn a number of amateur sleuths who haven’t necessarily been helpful. Crumb said that over the summer, someone went to the McCleary assessor’s office, got the names and addresses of everyone who lives on Maple Street, and posted that information on a message board devoted to Lindsey’s case, leaving the impression that any of those residents could have been responsible.
Crumb said that although posting such information online is legal, “it’s inappropriate.”
“I wish they’d tone that down,” he added.
Scott said some who have posted information about Lindsey’s case on the Internet have created “suspects du jour” who have had “nothing to do with anything,” he said.
“I think there’s a fine line between wanting to help and being irresponsible, and some people have crossed that line in making speculations and opinions that become accusatory.”
Calls also have come from residents who suggest someone they know could be responsible, Crumb said. Many of these calls seem to have more to do with an individual’s personal issues with someone than evidence connected to Lindsey’s disappearance, he said.
“We’ve had a lot of calls like that, unfortunately,” he said.
Crumb recalls that when he moved to McCleary in 1994 to take the police chief job, his daughter would ride her bike around town when she was about Lindsey’s age.
“We don’t have as many kids walking around as in the past. It’s on everybody’s mind,” he said.
Things won’t get back to normal in McCleary until the case is solved, Crumb said. But he fears it might remain unsolved until after he retires.
“It’s not going to go away,” he said.
MASSIVE SEARCH
In July and August, law enforcement officers and volunteers “tipped McCleary upside down” in a massive search for Lindsey, Scott said. The search included helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft from the State Patrol and search-and rescue-dogs from throughout the Puget Sound area, he said.
“I would find it hard to believe that you could find a piece of ground in McCleary that didn’t have one of their footprints,” Scott said.
Detective Davin said that during the first few weeks of the investigation, between 40 and 50 law enforcement officers were working on the case, including FBI agents.
Police spoke to every resident and searched inside and outside more than 150 homes on or near Maple Street, Scott said.
Detectives have reviewed records of people who used credit cards at downtown businesses during the period in which investigators think Lindsey disappeared, such as the Shell Station on Summit Road, Scott said. They even got a list of cell phones whose signals bounced off McCleary’s lone cell phone tower the evening of June 26, he said.
Linda Cunningham, the owner of McCleary Video on Simpson Avenue, said FBI agents have interviewed her three times about Lindsey’s visit to the store with friends an hour or so before she disappeared.
“They (investigators) talked to everybody in town,” she said. “They looked through everybody’s house at least twice.”
Cunningham said her store used to be filled with children renting DVDs and video games after school. However, “as soon as Lindsey got kidnapped, parents stopped letting their kids go around,” she said. “It’s hurting businesses, too. I don’t blame the parents.”
Cunningham added, “I feel so bad, but there are times I just want it to end. I like to think she will just come home. We just want her to come home and try to be a normal town again.”
HOLDING OUT HOPE
Lindsey’s mother, Melissa, answered the door with a cough at her Mommsen Road home Wednesday. Her son, Josh, a seventh-grader at McCleary Elementary School, was home sick with the flu. Lindsey’s German shepherd, Kadence, poked her nose through the door and Melissa Baum came outside for an interview.
She is steadfast in her belief that Lindsey is alive and will be returned home safe.
“I know my daughter’s going to be found,” she said. “I’m frustrated. It’s been four months and two days.”
Everyone in McCleary who has ever come across Lindsey – Chief Crumb, Cunningham, Kara Kampen (whose Maple Street home Lindsey was visiting June 26 to play with her friend Michaela) describe Lindsey as sharp, precocious for her age and talkative.
Lindsey had left her cell phone charging at home the evening she went missing.
When police viewed Lindsey’s MySpace page after her disappearance, they learned only that she had an affinity for the popular movie “Twilight,” a story of vampires set in Forks. A forensic search of her computer showed she had had no Internet communications with anyone whom she might have met without telling her mother, police said.
Melissa Baum said she’s sure whoever took Lindsey knew her, saying her daughter is too smart to get into a stranger’s car. If someone tried to hurt her, she’d fight back, Melissa Baum added.
Police did not issue an Amber Alert after Melissa reported her daughter missing at 10:50 p.m.; Melissa Baum says they should have done so. But Crumb and Scott have said that police do not have authority to issue an Amber Alert unless they know a child has been taken and they have concrete information to issue to the public – such as a car or suspect description – that can aid in a child’s recovery.
“We didn’t have that,” Scott said.
There is talk among law enforcement officers in Washington of changing the requirements for Amber Alerts so they can be issued in cases such as Lindsey’s, Scott said.
“I don’t disagree with Melissa that there’s some frustration in the whole Amber Alert thing,” he said.
Crumb noted that the vast majority of missing-child cases involve simple misunderstandings – a child forgot to tell a parent about sleeping over at a friend’s or left home after a dispute.
Melissa Baum said it’s difficult to see Lindsey’s old playmates around town. Lindsey’s dog Kadence only recently began gaining weight after refusing to eat anything for two weeks after Lindsey disappeared, she added.
Melissa Baum said yellow police tape blocks her family from entering Lindsey’s room because investigators want to preserve her scent for search dogs, which already have scoured the wooded areas around McCleary. Scott added that investigators want to keep Lindsey’s room untouched because there might be items in Lindsey’s room that later will become evidence, or that can be used to collect a DNA sample belonging to Lindsey.
“My life is standing still,” Melissa Baum said. “Everything’s off. It’s changed our whole life.”
WEEKLY SEARCHES
Melissa Baum now is in charge of the volunteer searches in and around McCleary every weekend. Searchers took Halloween weekend off; three weekends ago, the search team included more than 70 soldiers from Fort Lewis who scoured the wooded areas around McCleary, she said.
Crumb said that even though the searches have covered a lot of ground, the vastness of the forests and swampland around McCleary makes it impossible to say definitively that searchers have checked every place where Lindsey could be.
McCleary’s location near several highways increases the number of locations where an abductor could have taken her, Scott said. The roads out of McCleary include state Route 8, which leads to U.S. Highway 101 and Interstate 5; and state Route 108, which leads past Little Creek Casino toward Shelton.
Melissa Baum said she knows investigators are doing all they can but is frustrated by the lack of progress.
“I just feel like it’s taking too long,” she said. “I don’t know what I expect them to do that they’re not doing.”
Melissa Baum said she had a run-in in July with the most publicized of the “persons of interest” in Lindsey’s disappearance, a man in his early 20s who worked at a retirement home on the street where Lindsey last was seen.
Melissa Baum said the man followed her in a vehicle as she drove on Maple Street. She called police, and officers pulled the car over, court papers state.
The man said he thought Melissa Baum’s car was suspicious, “so he followed it around, thinking it might be connected with Baum’s disappearance,” the search warrant affidavit states.
Melissa Baum said of the episode, “I don’t trust anybody anymore.”
Scott said enough residents had notified police of the man’s odd behavior to spur investigators to obtain a search warrant for his and his family’s properties in McCleary on Oct. 2.
According to the search warrant affidavit, the man told conflicting stories about his whereabouts the night of Lindsey’s disappearance. He first told police he was working at the retirement home, but his former supervisor there said he was suspended the night of June 26.
He was a suspect in an attempted rape of a child in McCleary in 2000, the affidavit states, and he told a friend after Lindsey’s disappearance that “he could not believe that a girl had been taken and cut up and dismembered.” The friend told police that he “was obsessively talking about Baum and what had happened to her; specifically, that he believed she had been kidnapped and murdered.”
Nothing of evidentiary value was found during the search, although Scott is reluctant to say that the man – or anyone else – has been cleared in Lindsey’s disappearance. A Seattle TV station’s helicopter taped the police search of the property and aired it on local newscasts, but Scott said the man is only one of the eight to 12 people who have been investigated as “persons of interest” at one time or another during the investigation.
“I’m reluctant to say that anybody is 100 percent cleared because I don’t have any evidence,” Scott said.
The man whose property was searched has said his family will sue the sheriff’s office.
FALSE SIGHTINGS
Law enforcement officers also have had to contend with false sightings of Lindsey, Scott said. Early in the investigation, one of Melissa Baum’s family members called to report that she thought Lindsey was in the back of a car headed west on state Route 8, he said.
Police assumed it was a legitimate sighting because it was reported by someone who knows what Lindsey looks like, he said.
“Multiple units from multiple agencies set up to converge on the vehicle,” Scott said. “I’ve got guys doing 100 miles per hour, setting up to intercept this car.”
It turned out that the woman didn’t actually see Lindsey; she had information from a psychic that Lindsey was in the back of a car that looked like a vehicle she later spotted on the highway, he said.
Scott said the example illustrates not only the family’s desperate search, but also how police have to respond rapidly to every tip, because they never know which one will be the break that leads to finding Lindsey.
National media attention focused on Lindsey’s disappearance has helped get her picture out across the country, Scott said. Her disappearance has been covered by three national news networks, as well as “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “America’s Most Wanted” and “Nancy Grace,” he said.
However, national attention also has led “to false sightings all over,” Scott said.
“It’s problematic because you take a lot of resources to deal with that,” he said.
Lindsey last was seen wearing a blue, hooded, long-sleeve shirt, blue jeans, black shoes and a mismatched bikini-style swimsuit, court records state.
Tue Sep 29, 2009 10:22 am
