10-25-2010, 10:01 PM
Hickory Record
Authorities headed back to Caldwell County Monday in their search for missing 10-year-old Zahra Baker.
Despite a search by several law enforcement agencies and a surprise appearance by Zahra's stepmother, Elisa Baker, at one point, authorities turned up nothing.
The Caldwell County Sheriff's Office FBI, SBI and the Hickory Police Department searched an area of Caldwell County off Dudley Shoals Road near Burns Road from daybreak Monday until about 5:35 p.m. Nearly a dozen cars were at the scene, as well as SBI and FBI lab vans.
Law enforcement searched a heavily wooded area near a waterfalls, but the search seemed to center more toward the stream at the foot of the falls and closer toward the road. The brush is dense in that part of the area, and the stream is about 15 feet across and contains large rocks. During parts of the search, some members of law enforcement could be seen peering over the side of the bridge from the road, inspecting the work searchers were doing below.
Law enforcement closed off Dudley Shoals Road from Burns Road to just past Dudley Shoals Baptist Church to better aid their search efforts on Monday.
"We're following up on leads Hickory gets in our county,'' said Alan Jones, sheriff of Caldwell County. "We've gotten several leads.''
He acknowledged that several have not panned out, but said any lead is important.
Jones did not say what, specifically, investigators were looking for, just that they were looking for "different parts of evidence.''
Investigators left just before dusk without finding Zahra, despite her stepmother, Elisa, being at the scene. Elisa arrived at the search of the woods in a SUV at about midday, but did not get out of the car. She stayed for only a short time, before the SUV left.
However, according to an official at the Catawba County Detention Center, Elisa, 42, did not return to the jail until about 6 p.m. Information about where she went after she left the search site was not available.