FBI Search for Missing Colorado Girl
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(DENVER) — Authorities are resuming their search Saturday for a missing 10-year-old Colorado girl after she was last seen leaving for school Friday morning.
Overnight, at least 50 police officers from four jurisdictions including the FBI were looking for any sign of Jessica Ridgeway. An Amber Alert was issued late Friday night.
She left home at 8:30 a.m. to walk three blocks from her Westminster, Colo. home to meet friends for the walk to school. It was a route she took every day but she never got there.
When Jessica didn’t show up for class, school officials called her home.
But Jessica’s mother, who works the overnight shift at a tech company was asleep. She didn’t get the message which delayed her calling police for nearly eight hours.
“When we start with an eight hour delay, or a delay as substantial as this, the distance that she could have wandered even on her own just gets huge,” said Westminster Police Detective Trevor Materasso.
Police say that Jessica’s father, who lives out of state is in a custody battle with Jessica’s mother.
Police do not believe Jessica is with him but are not ruling anyone out.
“We don’t have a person of interest. And we are going to look at every angle multiple times,” said Materasso.
Police are searching vast areas of terrain including fields and lakes. Bad weather kept search helicopters grounded but about 150 volunteers turned out to help.
“Nothing like this has really ever happened, like, it’s always surprising when something happens here,” said volunteer Erica Neubauer.
Jessica was last seen wearing blue jeans, black boots, a black puffy jacket along with pink and purple glasses, ABC affilate KMGH reported.
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