^LINDSEY J BAUM - 10 yo - McCleary WA

"She hasn't been seen or heard from since," Pimentel said.Her mother reported her missing at 10:50 p.m. And as the hours drag by
with no sign of her, the girl's family fears she may have been taken by
a stranger.Search teams have been out looking for the girl, using bloodhounds.
Sheriff's deputies, meanwhile, are calling people who live in the
neighborhood and also are going door to door to see if anyone heard or
saw anything.
Other searchers are combing the nearby woods on ATVs. Everyone is anxious for any sign of the missing girl.
Pimentel said Lindsey has never been a runaway. "We don't suspect that at this time," he said.The girl's disappearance has shocked many residents of McCleary,
population 1,550, where the biggest employer is a lumber mill that
manufactures doors and people know their neighbors."We don't know what happened to her yet. All we know is she's missing, and we're taking every effort we can to try and locate her," he added.
Police say it appears Lindsey walked at least part of the way with home with friends, who didn't see anything unusual. Melissa McCann, a family friend, said, "This is a small town. These
things don't happen. And yet here they are. She comes from her friend's
(house) a lot, so it doesn't make sense that she didn't show up at
home. We're just baffled."
Pimentel said it's strange that nobody saw anything unusual."Such a small community like this - you can't do much in a town this size without everybody knowing about it," he said. "Everybody in town
knows she's unaccounted for."Lindsey's mother admits the 10-year old had been fighting with her
brother in the moments before she was last seen, and that Lindsey is still upset about her parent's recent divorce. But with every passing hour, there are mounting worries that the friendly girl who will talk with anybody is in serious trouble.Lindsey was last seen wearing a gray hooded pullover sweatshirt, with
blue jeans and black shoes. She stands about 4-feet-10-inches and
weighs about 85 pounds.Anyone with information is asked to call the Grays Harbor 911 Center at
(800) 281-6944 or the McCleary Police Department at (360) 495-3107.

* * * * Poster's Note: This is a small town of just over one thousand residents. Somebody would have seen her if she was still there. My opinion, this search needs to be broadened at least to the Olympia WA area

MCCLEARY
— Police are asking the public’s assistance in locating a 10-year-old
McCleary girl who did not return home Friday night from a visit with a
friend.
“I just need my daughter home,” said Melissa Baum, mother of Lindsey Baum. “Lindsey, please come home, you’re not in trouble.”
Lindsey Baum was wearing a hooded sweatshirt that was either gray or blue,
jeans and black sneakers, was walking from her friend’s house on Maple
Street to her own home on Mommsen Road, a four-block distance, and was
last seen at about 9:15 p.m., said Sgt. Ed Patrick with the Grays
Harbor Sheriffs Office.

Baum’s mother called the McCleary Police
Department at 10:50 p.m., having waited in case her daughter had
stopped to talk to her friend or otherwise dawdled, Patrick said.
Melissa Baum said Lindsey wasn’t angry Friday night, and left without money, a
change of clothes or her cellphone. Police have searched for the girl
in the homes of her friends, in case she had been “hiding out.”
“She wouldn’t have run away,” Baum said, her voice hoarse. “If she had been
hiding she would have come out by now. She can’t hide that long, she
loves to talk.”
Baum called her daughter a “mama’s girl,” and
said the two were re-reading the Harry Potter books aloud to prepare
for the upcoming movie. Lindsey wanted to have her friend over to read
with them, and left while it was still light out.
Chief George Crumb of the McCleary Police Department said friends and family are
assisting the search, and that while his department hopes Baum just ran
off on her own, “she’s been gone far too long.” Melissa Baum said she is afraid someone has taken her daughter, and taken her away from McCleary.
“If anyone does have her, bring her back home or take her to a pay phone where she can call home,” Baum said.
In the five years Crumb has been with McCleary there has not been an
abduction. No Amber Alert was initiated because no one had seen anyone
take her. Lindsey Baum was simply reported as a missing child.
“It did not meet any of the criteria for an Amber Alert,” Crumb said.
McCleary Police set up the initial search, but called in the Sheriffs Office at
4 a.m., Patrick said. Thurston County sheriffs deputies are also
assisting. “We are keeping our fingers crossed,” Crumb said.
Baum is four feet, nine inches tall and weighs about 80 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes.
Anyone with any information is urged to contact the Grays Harbor Emergency 911
Center at 360-533-8765 or the McCleary Police Department at 360-495-3107.

McCLEARY,
Wash. - A search continues in the small town of McCleary for a
10-year-old girl who didn't make it home Friday night. Lindsey J. Baum was last seen at roughly 9:15 p.m. on Maple Street. She
was walking home from a friend's house, and the distance she had to go
was only about four blocks. Family, friends and police are all aiding in the search. Family members are concerned because she has never run away from home. "We're hoping that Lindsey's just somewhere out there and she's afraid
she's in trouble, and Lindsey you're not in trouble - come home," said
Melissa McCann, a friend."If anybody's seen her, send her home."
Lindsey is
described as 4-foot 9-inches tall and 80 pounds, with brown hair and
brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a grey pullover hoodie with blue
jeans and black shoes. McCleary Police say she doesn’t
have a history of running away, and since there are fewer than 2,000
people in town, someone would recognize her if she were walking the
streets.
Anyone with information is asked to call Grays Harbor E911 Center at
360-533-8765 or McCleary Police at 360-495-3107.

SEATTLE -- FBI agents have joined the search for a 10-year-old Grays Harbor County girl missing since Friday night.
Lindsey Baum was last seen walking home from a friend's house about six blocks from her own home in the small town of McCleary.
Grays Harbor Undersheriff Rick Scott says law enforcement officers were
canvassing the city Sunday. He says search and rescue volunteers and
others combed the area Saturday where the girl was last seen but
"didn't yield anything."
Scott says there's no evidence of foul play, but his agency is "beginning to investigate with that possibility in mind."
The girl's mother reported her missing at Friday night.
"I just need my daughter home," Melissa Baum, the girl's mother told The
Aberdeen Daily World. She said she's afraid someone has taken her
daughter and away from McCleary, a town of about 1,500.
McCleary Police Chief George Crumb told the newspaper that while his
department hoped she ran off, "she's been gone far too long."
"This is a small town. These things don't happen. And yet here they are,"
Melissa McCann, a family friend told KOMO-TV. "She comes from her
friend's (house) a lot, so it doesn't make sense that she didn't show
up at home. We're just baffled."

MCCLEARY,
Wash. - Dozens of volunteers are taking back to the streets and woods
of this small Grays Harbor County town for a third day in search for a
10-year-old girl who vanished Friday while walking home from a friend's
house.
They'll be joined by FBI agents who are lending their expertise and
experience in solving missing children cases. The FBI also will be
bringing in more law enforcement personnel to assist.
Lindsey J. Baum was last seen between 9 and 10 p.m. Friday when she
left her friend's home on Maple Street, where she had been visiting,
said Dave Pimentel of the Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Office.
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.
Her mysterious disappearance has left police, family - along with
the whole town - affled and concerned at the girl's disappearance in a
town of 1,550 where everyone knows their neighbors.
The search is going national online as Lindsey's information is now on the front page of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children web site.
A wide-ranging search was launched early Saturday in the town and
the surrounding forests. The town was criss-crossed three times, but
not a trace of Lindsey has been found. Even bloodhounds failed to pick
up her scent.
Three times as many people joined the search on Sunday and many more
were expected Monday, as they scour areas that weren't checked earlier.
Police are hesitant to call the girl's disappearance a case of foul play just yet, but the girl's family fears the worst.
"I've tried to keep the thought of somebody grabbing her out of my mind," her mother, Melissa Baum, said Sunday.
She says Lindsey argued with her brother on her way to a friend's
house Friday night. She talked to her friend for a bit, then started
for home as darkness fell.
The friend's father, Scott Williams, said he asked Lindsey to go home before it got too dark.
"She was here 10, 15 minutes, and then, you know, we said, 'You
should probably get going before it gets dark,' and that was the last
we heard of her," he said.
Witnesses say Lindsey seemed normal as she headed out around 9:15.
Another friend even walked her part of the way, but Lindsey never
showed up at her home.

Searchers fan out to search for Lindsey Baum, 10.

"I want to think that everything's OK, but there's a part of me that thinks the worst," Williams says.
Now hope has turned to anxiety and alarm among frustrated search teams. The mother is also at a loss.
She says her daughter is upset about her recent divorce, but doesn't
have money to run away - and has never tried to run away before. Her
mom doubts at this point that Lindsey is trying to hide.
"If somebody does have her, I wish they would just drop her off
somewhere where she can get to a pay phone and call 911 or call home,
so that we can come and get her," she says, sobbing.
Melissa McCann, a family friend, said, "This is a small town. These
things don't happen. And yet here they are. She comes from her friend's
(house) a lot, so it doesn't make sense that she didn't show up at
home. We're just baffled."
Lindsey's father lives in Tennessee. Police have contacted him, and
he's not suspected of any involvement in Lindsey's disappearance.
Pimentel said it's strange that nobody saw anything unusual.
"Such a small community like this - you can't do much in a town this
size without everybody knowing about it," he said. "Everybody in town
knows she's unaccounted for."
Lindsey was last seen wearing a gray or blue hooded pullover
sweatshirt, with blue jeans and black shoes. She has brown eyes, brown
hair, and stands about 4-feet-9-inches and weighs about 80 pounds.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Grays Harbor 911 Center
at (800) 281-6944 or the McCleary Police Department at (360) 495-3107.

MCCLEARY,
Wash. - The National Guard has joined the FBI, search and rescue teams
and dozens of volunteers in looking for a 10-year-old girl who vanished
Friday while walking home from a friend's house.
Meanwhile, friends and family members have planned a prayer vigil for Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. at Beerbauer Park.

Lindsey J. Baum was last seen between 9 and 10 p.m. Friday when she
left her friend's home on Maple Street, where she had been visiting,
said Dave Pimentel of the Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Office.
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.
Her mysterious disappearance has left police, family - along with
the whole town - affled and concerned at the girl's disappearance in a
town of 1,550 where everyone knows their neighbors.
The search is going national online as Lindsey's information is now on the front page of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children web site.
A wide-ranging search was launched early Saturday in the town and
the surrounding forests. The town was criss-crossed three times, but
not a trace of Lindsey has been found. Even bloodhounds failed to pick
up her scent.
Three times as many people joined the search on Sunday and many more
were expected Monday, as they scour areas that weren't checked earlier.
"We searched all of the outlying area of the logging roads... and up
the highway, and along the railroad tracks," said volunteer Stephanie
Ross.
Deputies are asking for tips or any information anyone might have about Lindsey.
"Call us up. It may mean nothing to you; it may be very, very
important to this investigation," said Rick Scott, Grays Harbor County
Undersheriff. They've established a new tip line at 1-866-915-8299.
Police are hesitant to call the girl's disappearance a case of foul play just yet, but the girl's family fears the worst.
"I've tried to keep the thought of somebody grabbing her out of my mind," her mother, Melissa Baum, said Sunday.
She says Lindsey argued with her brother on her way to a friend's
house Friday night. She talked to her friend for a bit, then started
for home as darkness fell.
The friend's father, Scott Williams, said he asked Lindsey to go home before it got too dark.
"She was here 10, 15 minutes, and then, you know, we said, 'You
should probably get going before it gets dark,' and that was the last
we heard of her," he said.
Witnesses say Lindsey seemed normal as she headed out around 9:15.
Another friend even walked her part of the way, but Lindsey never
showed up at her home.

Searchers fan out to search for Lindsey Baum, 10.

"I want to think that everything's OK, but there's a part of me that thinks the worst," Williams says.
Now hope has turned to anxiety and alarm among frustrated search teams. The mother is also at a loss.
She says her daughter is upset about her recent divorce, but doesn't
have money to run away - and has never tried to run away before. Her
mom doubts at this point that Lindsey is trying to hide.
"If somebody does have her, I wish they would just drop her off
somewhere where she can get to a pay phone and call 911 or call home,
so that we can come and get her," she says, sobbing.
Lindsey's father lives in Tennessee. Police have contacted him, and
he's not suspected of any involvement in Lindsey's disappearance.
Pimentel said it's strange that nobody saw anything unusual.
"Such a small community like this - you can't do much in a town this
size without everybody knowing about it," he said. "Everybody in town
knows she's unaccounted for."
Lindsey was last seen wearing a gray or blue hooded pullover
sweatshirt, with blue jeans and black shoes. She has brown eyes, brown
hair, and stands about 4-feet-9-inches and weighs about 80 pounds.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Grays Harbor 911 Center
at (800) 281-6944 or the McCleary Police Department at (360) 495-3107.

But on Friday evening, the McCleary, Wash., 10-year-old left her friend's house for home and disappeared somewhere along the way.
"I think somebody took her,"
Melissa Baum said of her daughter, who was ready to enter the
sixth-grade in the fall. "I'm trying to constantly push away the bad
thoughts."
Grays Harbor County Undersheriff Rick Scott said search efforts
have escalated in the days since Lindsey's been missing from volunteers
on foot -- still the most common tactic used -- to scent dogs, horses,
ATVs and helicopters.
"We're not ready to give up hope," Scott told ABCNews.comBaum said 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 daughter.
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 leash in hopes the dog would help find her.
Finally, around 10:45 p.m., Baum said she called police.
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.
Scott said that, with the FBI's expertise with missing children,
authorities have been conducting a simultaneous search and rescue
operation with a criminal investigation, hoping to find leads.
The latter includes checking up on the resident and transient
sex offenders in McCleary and neighboring communities and reviewing
surveillance videos.
Scott said that there are a few businesses located just off the street
Lindsey would have used to get home and while the little girl did not
appear in any of the videos, police have gotten clues about who was in
the area at the time she disappeared.
Scott said witnesses were able to put Lindsey within a couple
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.
Authorities had initially looked at the case as a possible
runaway, but Scott admitted that "it's becoming less likely as time
goes on."
Baum said she knows her daughter would not run away. She had
been upset about her parents finalizing their divorce back in April,
but had known it was coming, Baum said.
And Lindsey knew better than to go somewhere with a stranger -- it was something they had talked about previously.
"I think she's alive," Baum said. "I really and truly feel that strongly in my heart."
Baum said she and Lindsey had been planning to celebrate her
upcoming July 7 birthday by going with a group of friends to the new
"Harry Potter" movie a few days later.
Instead, the family is now trying to cope with a life without
Lindsey in it. Baum said her son Josh is racked by guilt that he argued
with his sister and left her to visit her friend on her own. And even
Kadence is suffering the loss of a friend, refusing to eat normally.
Baum said she's baffled that no one has reported seeing
anything the night Lindsey disappeared, unusual since the street she
took home is continuously lined with homes.
"If we can find her," she said, "we can work through anything."

UPDATE: A Washington State Patrol airplane is coordinating efforts with
ground searchers today in McCleary as the investigation of 10-year-old
Lindsey Baum's disappearance continues, said Grays Harbor County
Undersheriff Rick Scott.
Baum disappeared at around 9:15 p.m. on Friday as she embarked alone
on about a half-mile walk from a friend's on Maple Street to her home
on Mommsen Road.Scott said today that investigators still don't have concrete evidence she was abducted.About
30 ground searchers and 30 law enforcement officials were working on
Lindsey's disappearance, he said. Scott said the State Patrol airplane
will help search some of the heavily forested areas north, south and
east of McCleary. Detectives are continuing to canvass the town, going
door to door talking to residents, he said. They're also locating and
interviewing sex offenders with ties to McCleary, he said.Scott
said he'll have an update on the investigation by the end of the day.
So far, investigators have no evidence or information that has narrowed
the search, he said.Anyone with information on Baum's disappearance should call the Grays Harbor County 911 center at 360-533-8765 or 1-866-8299.

MCCLEARY, Wash. -- As the search for a missing 10-year-old girl
stretched into its fourth day Tuesday, more reinforcements were being
brought in to assist.
The State Patrol will be flying a search pattern over the general
McCleary area, scanning the ground for Lindsey Baum with a heat-sensing
camera. The video will be fed live back to the ground where officials
can see the results in real-time. Cadets from the Civil Air Patrol are also joining the growing search
party for the girl, who disappeared while walking home on Friday. And
police scoured surveillance videos from the town's businesses looking
for any clues.

Meanwhile, Baum's mother issued a desperate plea that if someone took her daughter, to let her go.
"If somebody does have her, just let her go. Drop her off at a
restaurant or gas station where she can get to a phone and call,"
Melissa Baum said.
The mother believes her daughter would never have willingly gotten into a stranger's car.
"If somebody grabbed her she would have put up a fight," she said. "She would definitely scream."
The missing girl was going to walk the ten blocks to her home on
Mommsen Road from a friend's house, which is roughly a 10-minute walk.
But something happened in that short distance, and she never arrived
home.
On Tuesday that friend, Michaela Kampen, had a plea for anyone who may be behind Lindsay Baum's mysterious disappearance.
"If you kidnapped her and you're watching this, if you could
just find it deep in your heart to let her off somewhere so she call
anyone or anything," she said. Her mysterious disappearance has left police, family and the whole town
baffled and concerned at the girl's disappearance in a town of 1,550
where everyone knows their neighbors.
"I don't really think she's in McCleary," Melissa Baum said.
"Because McCleary has been torn upside-down and I just feel if she was
here in McCleary she'd be found by now."
Deputies said for those outside the area wanting to help, it's
difficult to find things for them to do, but police do have a message
for those who live in the area:
"The biggest thing to get the message to check their areas
around their home get their neighbors involved in checking the areas
around the houses," said Lt. David Porter with the Grays Harbor
Sheriff's Office. He added anyone who saw anything around that area Friday evening - even
something that might seem trivial - should give deputies a call. A
tipline has been set up at (866) 915-8299.

McCLEARY, Wash. — Friends and townspeople gathered Tuesday night in
the small Western Washington community of McCleary in a candlelight
vigil for a missing 10-year-old girl.
Earlier in the day, the search continued for Lindsey Baum, both in
town and on nearby trails as searchers on horseback checked areas they
could reach.
Grays Harbor County Undersheriff Rick Scott says several tips have
been received, and investigators would like to talk to anyone who may
have seen anything suspicious in McCleary between the hours of 8:30-10
Friday night when the little girl failed to return home from a friend's
house.
Melissa Baum fears her daughter was abducted.
Lindsey is 4 foot-9, 80 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes, last
seen wearing a light blue hooded pullover shirt and blue jeans.

MCCLEARY - It has now been 4 days since anyone has seen 10-year old
Lindsey Baum from the small town of McCleary, 25 miles west of Olympia.
The FBI along with the National Center For Missing And Exploited
children has now joined the search.

Lindsey disappeared Friday night as she walked from a friend's house to
her own home. Her mom called police when Lindsey failed to show up
around 10 pm that night.

Tuesday night friends and McCleary area residents gathered for a
candlelight vigil for Lindsey. Earlier in the day, searchers used
planes and helicopters to search from the air while ground crews on
horses and motorcycles combed nearby trails for any sign of the missing
10-year old. Grays Harbor County Undersheriff Rich Scott says several
tips have come in and investigators want to talk with anyone who saw
anything suspicious in McCleary between 8:30pm and 10pm Friday night.

Melissa Baum talked with Q13 Fox News Monday night. She says she's hoping against hope that her little girl will be OK.

She says; "I'm trying very hard to avoid thinking about what could be.
My heart tells me she's alive. I actually feel like she's alive but
every hour that goes by is getting harder and harder and I feel like
we're running out of time we've got to find her."

Grays Harbor County Undersheriff Richard Scott said he's not sure what happened to Baum.

"This is a girl with no means, no money, and no true opportunity to
leave. We have nothing specifically that is pointing us in any
direction that is going to allow us to rule out any scenario.... this
may be a worst case scenario criminal investigation involving a
predator or predatory behavior," Scott said.

Police officers, Sheriff's deputies and volunteers spent hours passing out fliers and looking for the girl over the weekend.

On Sunday night, the FBI and local law enforcement started stopping
every car that passed through McCleary. Agents passed out flyers with
the girl's picture and checked to see if the drivers were in the area
Friday night and had any information on the case.

The girl's family is extremely worried and said it's hard to even think about what might have happened.

"Everybody's on eggshells and stressed and we just want to know where
she is and what's going on," friend Melissa McCann told Q13 Fox News.
McCann said the girl's mother has not slept since Lindsey went missing.

Throughout the weekend, searchers combed the small town door by door,
leaving a flyer on every business, checking neighborhoods, then
checking them again.

"We're with search and rescue and we'd like permission to search your
back yard," said one volunteer as she knocked on yet another door in
the neighborhood where Lindsey was last seen.

"Everybody knows everybody's business and we'd have expected that if
she was still in town. Somebody would have notified us and we haven't
had that, unfortunately," says Dave Pimentel, Deputy Chief of the Grays
Harbor Sheriff's Office.

Lindsey Baum was visiting her friend Michaela Kampen Friday night.
Michaela's mother Kara Kampen says it started getting late and she sent
Lindsey home.

"They had asked to spend the night and we had plans and we said 'not
tonight' so she headed home," says Kampen. "It's reality check for all
parents that this could happen in McCleary of all places."

Lindsey's mother called 911 and searchers hit the streets, combing the five-block walk to Lindsey's home.

The small logging community of McCleary is now united by a single cause: finding a missing child.

"I have children also and if my child came up missing I'd want somebody
to help me," said Timothy Day, who came to the McCleary police station
and volunteered to help with the search.

It's help McCleary police desperately need.

"They only have three officers in the department, including the chief," said Pimentel.

The Grays Harbor Sheriff's Office is backing up McCleary police and right now they're confident in their efforts.

The McCleary police chief has decided against issuing an Amber Alert for the girl.

"We checked the state criteria and it just didn't meet it," explains George Crumb, McCleary's Chief of Police.

Although investigators are not calling Lindsey a runaway, not even the girl's family has ruled out the possibility.

Lindsey is 4'9" tall and 80 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. She
was last seen wearing a gray sweatshirt with blue jeans and black shoes.

If you can help in this case, call the Grays Harbor 911 center at 1-800-281-6944.

Posters Note: I have, from the beginning of this case felt that the result would be similar to Sandra Cantu.

McCLEARY,
Wash. -- A national expert helping in the search for 10-year-old
Lindsey Baum says someone Lindsey knew might be responsible for her
disappearance. Baum vanished while walking home from a friend’s house Friday around 9 p.m. "Based on the information I have, it’s someone she possibly knows or is
in the area, not outside the area," said Henry Schmidt, with the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Schmidt, a retired sheriff from Wyoming, arrived in McCleary to assist with the search Sunday. Volunteers and police have been going door-to-door to talk to every person in McCleary. Officially, search coordinators with the Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s
Office said they are not leaning any direction yet as to what happened
to Lindsey. Investigators have not found any evidence to suggest she was kidnapped, got lost or just ran away. Schmidt said the majority of abducted children are taken by people they know. Schmidt said statistically, most abducted children are murdered within
24 hours. But, he said, that doesn’t make searchers give up hope. “I’ve seen positive results," Schmidt said. "There’s proven cases out there of kids being found a couple of years later." A
spokesperson for Lindsey's mother says the family is holding out hope
and trying to stay positive, but as time passes they say that's harder
to do. Late Tuesday night, residents of McCleary gathered
in the city park to hold a vigil for a Lindsey, a familiar bright face
to many of them. "Honestly, I know she's alive," Melissa
Baum, the missing girl's mother told KING 5. "And I just wanted
everybody watching for her." Melissa Baum says she's
thankful for all that people have done for her family. Lindsey's
father, who lives in Tennessee, is expected to arrive in town on
Friday. Lindsey is 4-foot-9, 80 pounds, with brown hair
and brown eyes, last seen wearing a light blue hooded pullover shirt
and blue jeans. Anyone with information is asked
to call the hotline that has been set up. The number is 1-866-915-8299
or e-mail detectives at: soadmin@co.grays-harbor.wa.us .

Lindsey Baum is afraid of the dark.

She’s also a bit superstitious.

Combine the two and during the so-called Witching Hour between midnight and 1
a.m., the 10-year-old McCleary girl won’t even set foot out the door,
her family says.

Her mother Melissa Baum describes an incident a
few weeks ago in which Lindsey had left something in the family car
late at night and wanted to retrieve it but wouldn’t go out until the
Witching Hour was over.

That’s why it makes no sense to Baum
that her little girl would have wandered away late at night. Baum and
members of her family think Lindsey was abducted when she was walking
back from a friend’s house some four blocks from her home, where she
lives with her mom and 12-year-old brother, Josh.

“What else is there?” said family friend Melissa McCann. “She didn’t just get
abducted by aliens. It’s not just ‘Poof, she’s gone.’ She’s not a
runaway. We’ve known that from the beginning.”

Grays Harbor Undersheriff Rick Scott said an abduction scenario is entirely
possible, but investigators are also not discounting the notion that
Lindsey ran away from home or got hurt somewhere and couldn’t get back
home. They aren’t ruling out anything. Searchers have been looking for
her high and low since she went missing Friday night.

Her family is holding out hope for her return, especially by her 11th birthday, which is next Tuesday.

Melissa Baum said Lindsey’s birthday wish was for a digital camera so she could upload pictures to her computer.

Lindsey was in Girl Scouts. She went to church at the Evergreen Christian
Center in McCleary, an offshoot of a larger church in west Olympia. She
sometimes worked the front counter at Baum’s store in Elma, a “dollar
store.”

She didn’t spend much time watching television but she
loved using the computer, including the popular social networking site
MySpace and hanging with her friends, according to her family. MySpace.com lists two Lindsey Baums in McCleary with MySpace pages.

One, with a picture of Lindsey’s pet German Shepherd on the page, is marked
“private.” It lists her mood as “adored” and the name of her account as
“DISTURBED.” But it gives no other public information.

A second
MySpace account is more public. Her nickname there is TWILIGHT FREAK.
She loved the popular “Twilight” series of books, love stories about
teen-age vampires. And Stephen King novels. And S.E Hinton, who wrote
“The Outsiders.”

She listed her best friends as her personal heroes. And said she wants to have children “someday.”

She also described herself a little older — 13 years old, instead of 10. And taller — 5-foot-2 instead of her 4-foot-9 stature.

Cryptically, within two hours of creating this second MySpace account in May, Baum
allegedly wrote: “I’ve been getting a lot of nightmares lately and I
have this bad feeling that something bad is gonna happen.”

The family doesn’t know why she wrote it. Neither does Undersheriff Scott.

Scott said the comment and some other smatterings of clues initially led
police to believe that Lindsey might have faked her disappearance. That
thought is out the window as investigators now enter their fifth day of
searching.

“Surely, she would have returned by now,” Scott said.

The Baum family moved to McCleary about two years ago without husband and
father Scott, who remained in Tennessee. Eventually, the relationship
broke apart, family members said. And Scott, who is in the military,
stayed in Tennessee.

Police have contacted the father and say he has not had contact with Lindsey in some time.

McCann
said she has known Melissa Baum for 30 years. They were in Girl Scouts
together and grew up in the Lacey area. She encouraged the family to
move back to Washington state.

McCleary was a natural fit because McCann lives in nearby Elma.

Baum attended school for a short while in Elma, near the McCann home. But
this year, she enrolled as a fifth-grader at McCleary School. Her mom
said she got along very well with her teacher Lynn Bolster.

With
a group of girls, sometimes she would walk to school, which is just a
few blocks farther than where she disappeared. Most times she would
ride the school bus.

The divorce was causing her grades to suffer, her mom thinks. And friends of Lindsey said she was missing a fair share of school days because of “stress.”

“Lindsey was having a hard time this school year,” Melissa Baum said. “This was not
a good year for her — with the divorce and everything.”

Still,
Lindsey enjoyed writing and continued to do so anytime she had a free
moment. The police have been combing her writings looking for clues as
to her disappearance.

“She sits and writes notes and poems,” her mother said. “She’s won a couple of contests for her writing. This last year she won second place for the fifth-grade writing competition.”

When she was living in Tennessee, her family says she was part of a special
summer writing program at the University of Tennessee. She won a
scholarship to be part of it.

The experience made her want to be a professional writer.

But she also has other dreams — like being an artist. Her family said she’d love to write and illustrate her own book, in fact.

She also loves animals and flirted with the idea of being a veterinarian.
She had cared for her 5-year-old German shepherd Kadence since the dog
was a puppy.

Lindsey’s room is now blocked off with police tape.
Yet the dog still has found a way to sneak in. The family’s had to get
creative in figuring out ways to make sure the room stays secure.

“She’s Lindsey’s dog,” her mom said. “She slept with Lindsey.”

Now the dog is following brother Josh just about everywhere he goes and has
been looking all over the neighborhood for Lindsey on her own.

Josh says Kadence won’t even eat her own dog food because Lindsey’s not around. They have to feed her hot dogs.

Eating and sleeping is taking its toll on the family too.

Baum said she would like to be out there looking for her daughter. And, for
a while on the night she disappeared, the mom said she did search —
before and after she called the police to report her missing. But
police have asked her to stay home, she said.

So she and other family members have plenty of time to just think. And watch the news.
And stare at Lindey’s photos and belongings.

They’ve received
phone calls or been interviewed on every regional broadcast network and
on some national ones. There have been plenty of newspapers, too.

The family’s been trying hard to make Josh stay put. At one point, the
12-year-old went around the neighborhood on his bike calling out
Lindsey’s name. He feels guilty because shortly before she disappeared,
the two had a sibling argument over a bike.

Sometimes she could make a mountain out of a mole hill, the family says, but they don’t
think any of that played into a runaway scenario.

“She’s a very emotional child,” her mom said. “We’ve always called her a drama queen.”

One of Lindsey’s best friends, 11-year-old Christina Richards, said the two
would hang out together at a local creek or the city park and muse
about life.

“I asked her a question when I first met her about
where she would go if she were to run away and I said I’d want to run
away to the Bahamas. She didn’t want to.” Christina says Lindsey wanted
to stay here.

As the days pass and searchers in McCleary find no sign of missing
10-year-old Lindsey Baum, investigators have to consider it likely that
the child was taken from the street against her will, Grays Harbor
County Undersheriff Rick Scott said Wednesday. Lindsey disappeared Friday night after leaving a friend’s house to walk alone about a half-mile to her home on Mommsen Road.The
last person to see Lindsey was a resident driving though McCleary who
saw her walking on Maple Street between Fifth and Sixth streets about
9:15 p.m. She was about halfway home, near the center of town.For
five days, a massive search undertaken by law enforcement has yielded
no clues about what might have happened to Lindsey, Scott said.
Scott said it is unlikely that Lindsey would have been able to run
away from home and remain hidden, given the media attention generated
by her disappearance. If someone is responsible for Linsdey’s
disappearance, he or she might be exhibiting odd behavior or showing
warning signs, Scott said. People should be on the lookout for these
signs among friends, co-workers and even loved ones, he said.Scott suggested that one or more of the following warning signs might raise a red flag and should result in a call to police: • Someone suddenly changing his or her physical appearance, such as cutting or dyeing hair or shaving a mustache or beard. • Someone suddenly getting rid of a car. • An unexplained or out-of-character absence from work. • Unexplained cuts or bruises to the face or arms. • Someone
picking up or resuming bad habits such as smoking or drinking, or
changes in mood, such as being depressed or irritable for no apparent
reason.Wednesday’s search for Lindsey focused on areas 3 to 4
miles outside McCleary and included about 20 people and search dogs,
Scott said. The search included logging roads and private roads that
were accessible when Lindsey went missing, he said. The landfill in McCleary also was searched for clues Wednesday.“We’ve pretty much searched the city of McCleary and the immediate area surrounding that,” Scott said. No planes or helicopters were used in Wednesday’s search, but there might be another air search later, he added.Anyone
with information about Lindsey’s disappearance is asked to call the
Grays Harbor County 9-1-1 center at 360-533-8765 or 866-915-8299.