LINDSEY J BAUM - 10 yo (2009) - 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.

MCCLEARY, Wash. -- The massive ground search for the missing
10-year-old girl was scaled back on Wednesday as investigators turned
the focus of their work from searching to following up on tips they've
received.

On Wednesday a second person came forward to report
having seen Lindsey Baum on Friday night as she walked home along Maple
Street from a friend's house.

Experts with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children say if the girl was abducted, it
most likely wasn't by a stranger who was hiding in the bushes.

"From what knowledge we have and the information that I have that it's
someone that she possibly knows, somebody that is in the area," said
Henry Schmidt with the organization.

The FBI now wants neighbors to think about anyone who may have been in the area Friday
night. They also want to hear about anyone suddenly engaging in strange
behavior, such as not showing up for work, selling their car for no
reason or changing their appearance.

"We're certainly not looking for a witch hunt or anything of that sort, but the bottom line
is we have a missing girl. And so anyone who is in this area is going
to be someone we want to talk to," said Ron Twersky, FBI assistant
special agent in charge.

The missing girl's mother, who wanted avoid becoming the center of the investigation, voluntarily took a
polygraph test. The father of the girl's best friend, Scott Williams,
also volunteered to take the test.

"At their requests polygraphs were given to them. They passed those polygraphs. We're
comfortable with the information they've shared with us and comfortable
with the timeline they've explained," said Grays Harbor County
Undersheriff Rick Scott.

Lindsey Baum 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 - The town of McCleary in Grays Harbor County isn't giving up
hope, but law enforcement officials have suspended their search and
rescue efforts for 10-year-old Lindsey Baum.

While the investigation continues, crews have stopped combing the area
for the girl. Search dogs, ATVs, helicopters and planes will no longer
be utilized.

Grays Harbor County Undersheriff Rick Scott told Q13 FOX News that
crews have thoroughly searched the area around McCleary. Now, this case
is shifting into more of an investigation, with 30 officers trying to
develop new leads.

Authorities say, by now, it's very unlikely that Baum has run away from home and it's possible that someone has kidnapped her.

Scott spoke about his department has uncovered so far, and what it means about the future of the investigation.

"It suggests that she's been removed from this immediate environment,"
Scott said. "But we don't have the evidence to support that theory, so
we have to continue to be as comprehensive as we were from day one."

Baum vanished Friday night while walking home from her friend's house.

On Wednesday, volunteers continued to hand-out flyers to people driving
through town, while search crews went door to door looking for clues
with their dogs and several police agencies including the FBI checked
on sex offenders and followed-up on tips from the community.

Ronald Twersky, the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of FBI Seattle
says, "Obviously we're concerned with the time that's passed, but we're
looking at this to locate Lindsey and that's the approach we have going
forward."

Twersky says they have more than a dozen agents working on the case in
rotating shifts, including agents with their child abduction response
team. They're talking to neighbors, relatives and anyone who was in the
area when Lindsey disappeared.

Investigators say if you saw anything unusual Friday night in McCleary,
or have noticed a change in someone's behavior, contact the police.

Meanwhile, parents in the area are keeping a close eye on their kids.

McCleary parent Charlie Packard says Lindsey's disappearance is scary
for parents. He's lived here his whole life and has never heard of
anything like this happening before.

Packard has two young sons and is keeping them at his side. One of
their 7-year-old friends says she's staying safe by not running around
the neighborhood anymore. She's also keeping an eye on her friends.

Search crews and dogs continued to comb the
streets of McCleary and nearby woods Wednesday looking for 10-year-old
Lindsey Baum, but authorities have started to shift toward an abduction
investigation as the hunt entered its sixth day.

“We are starting to look at this as more of a criminal investigation,” Grays
Harbor Undersheriff Rick Scott said. “The possibility that someone has
facilitated her disappearance is becoming greater as the hours tick on.”

Baum disappeared late Friday while walking home from a friend’s house. No
evidence of her whereabouts has turned up despite confirmed sightings
of her just blocks from home shortly after 9 p.m.

Scott said the large search effort from the weekend has been scaled down from dozens
spread throughout the surrounding areas to a group of about 20
specialized searchers targeting specific areas.

“We’ve found no evidence of her being here,” he said. “We’ve found no evidence of her disappearance.”

Local authorities, with support from the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
have stepped up inquiries into people that may have known Baum or lived
nearby.

Ron Twersky, assistant special agent in charge from the
Seattle FBI field office, said people should report strange behavior or
“just anything that doesn’t seem right.”

“The bottom line is we have a missing girl,” Twersky told reporters Wednesday, emphasizing
investigators are examining all leads.

Scott said people should watch for any
unusual social behavior, ranging from increased alcohol use and smoking
to anyone who suddenly wants to leave the area or sell their car.
McCleary residents should report any suspicions to authorities.

“They may have an association with someone who knows something,” he said, “so
if they suspect that, please be the person who has the courage to come
forward.”

Scott said that from the beginning, investigators have
explored the possibility of family members or friends being involved.
Baum’s mother and the stepfather of the young girl Baum had been
visiting just before she disappeared have both taken voluntary
polygraph tests to aid the investigation.

“They asked to be polygraphed so that we would be comfortable with what we were being
told and we could move on to other things,” Scott said. “They did not
want us to be wasting valuable time.”

Scott said he was “comfortable” with their answers.

Throughout the search, investigators have spoken with Baum’s father, who lives in
Tennessee, Scott said. The father has now booked a flight to Washington
for this weekend.

Scott said authorities have run into several
dead ends with almost no signs of the 4-foot-9, brown-haired girl, who
was last spotted wearing a blue pullover shirt and blue jeans.

“I don’t know anything more than I knew Saturday afternoon,” he said, “but I’m not willing to admit that I know anything less.”

Scott said bloodhounds traced the route Lindsey took early on from the
friend’s house to her own home, but didn’t find any scent. And in
places where Lindsey once played — parks and by the creek — Lindsey’s
scent has been vanishing.

The loss of scent could be a combination of factors — the heat on the sidewalk could have dissipated it for instance, he said.

Scott said a second person came forward Tuesday with a confirmed sighting of
Baum from Friday night in the same area along Maple Street near Fifth
Street.

Twersky said the FBI has more than a dozen agents in
McCleary assisting with the investigation, including specialists from
the regional Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team. Behavioral
profilers have also offered input on any potential kidnappers.

“Because this is a missing child, we’ll take any advice we can,” he said.

Twersky refused to speculate on any statistics or chances of locating the girl.
He again asked people to report any suspicious behavior, but warned
against starting a “witch hunt.”

Few new details were available
this morning. Sheriff Mike Whelan and Scott spoke on the “Live at Nine”
radio show on KXRO early today in further attempts to get information
out to surrounding communities.

“It’s more likely at this point that she’s been abducted than anything else,” Whelan said on the show.
“There are so many variables, so many things that might have happened
to this child. We really, at this point, don’t know if she went
willingly or unwillingly.”

After five days of searching under a hot sun, the group of volunteers and officers was noticeably smaller
Wednesday afternoon as they continued to rally at the command center
outside McCleary City Hall.

Search dogs rested in the shade. Smaller teams came and went. No planes flew overhead.

Scott said the search would have to continue to expand beyond the city
limits, targeting logging roads or other remote areas farther afield.
But he vowed it would go on as long as necessary.

“We’re going to bring Lindsey home,” he said. “We will find her. If I have to knock
on every door in Grays Harbor County to do that, I will.”

MCCLEARY -

Nearly a week after her disappearance, there's still no sign of missing 10-year old Lindsey Baum.

Detectives say they're now taking a closer look at her computer and how she may have used the Internet before she vanished.

No one has seen Lindsey since last Friday night when she left a friend's house in McCleary to walk home.

Today local residents handed out more flyers with Lindsey's picture.

One local family who hasn't given up is selling cupcakes to raise money for Lindsey's family.

Loretta McCarty says she's doing it because she loves Lindsey and wanted to do something to help.

"Anything that'll help," said McCarty. "Anything."

Others in the close-knit community of McCleary continued passing out flyers with Lindsey's picture to passing motorists.

Duane Norris says he'll stay on the streets handing out the flyers until Lindsey is found or until someone tells him to stop.

"I don't know if more tips are coming in or not," Norris said. "But you know, all it takes is the right one."

"We're going to continue to have cops on the street through the
weekend," says Grays Harbor County Undersheriff Rick Scott, "through
the holiday, interviewing people and doing what we have to do."

Scott says even though a physical search has been called off in
McCleary, an intense investigation will continue into the girl's
disappearance.

"We're taking police officers and putting them on the street to follow up on the stack of tips we've received," said Scott.

Authorities expect Lindsey's father to arrive in town Thursday night or
Friday. He's in the military service, stationed in Tennessee. Police
hope he may be able to share new information with them to help them
solve the disappearance.

We're looking at what's being said on the Internet. Looking at some of
the communication that's being done in the community. The people that
live here, the friends, the family, the neighbors, are the people that
know this community better than you, than I, than any of the officers
working it," said Scott. "So it's talking to them and hopefully
prompting someone's memory and dragging out that seemingly meaningless
piece of information that they have that's going to unravel this
mystery."

McCLEARY — Kara
Kampen said she thought nothing of it when Lindsey Baum walked out of
her house at about 9:15 p.m. last Friday. Little McCleary was such a
homey place, such a safe place, that the idea that anything could
happen to her was completely ridiculous.

But Lindsey, 10, never made it back from Kampen’s home on Maple Street. Somewhere along the four blocks home, she vanished.

And with her, so went the small town’s sense of security.

“I don’t let my kids walk around outside anymore in the evening,” Kampen said. Only in the daytime, and never alone.

Kampen said this as she sold cupcakes across the street from Beerbower Park, raising money to help the Baum family.

“I couldn’t not do something,” she said. “They need the help. It’s hard to
go to work when the police are telling you to stay at home all day.”

Kampen said she draws strength from Melissa Baum, Lindsey’s mother.

“She’s so hopeful, it’s an inspiration to me,” Kampen said. “Because of her, I
truly believe Lindsey is alive, and just waiting to be found.”
Kampen moved to town in January from Arizona, and practically from the moment
her daughter Michaela met Lindsey, they were fast friends. Brassy,
sassy girls with big senses of humor, the two were practically
“attached at the hip,” Kampen said.

In Arizona, no one let their kids outdoors, Kampen said. There was too much bad news. It was one of
the reasons she moved to McCleary, for its wholesome atmosphere. It was
a place where kids could be kids, she said.

“You just don’t see kids out here anymore, when it’s still bright,” Kampen said. “You see
some of the older ones, or a few on bikes, but it’s not at all like it
used to be.

“It definitely doesn’t have the same feeling,” she said of the small town, population 1,500.

While McClearyites are grieving over the loss of Lindsey Baum, they still
hold out hope that she will return. But the sense of ease and trust
that pervaded the small town is now shot, neighbors say.

“Children used to walk around town all the time,” said Julie Colbert, a lifelong
McCleary resident out handing fliers to passing drivers in a bright
yellow shirt with Lindsey Baum’s image on it.

Colbert pointed to Beerbower Park. On a brilliant, sunny day, with its field and
playground, the few who were there were all adults.

“Look at the park, it’s empty! It was never empty like that before,” Colbert said,
on the verge of tears. “It would be full. So would the sidewalks, with
kids all getting together.”

What makes Baum’s disappearance even worse for McCleary residents is the speculation that she was abducted by someone she knew. No one heard her cry out, nor is there any
physical evidence, like a dropped shoe, to show that she struggled,
they say.

“I can’t believe something like this happened in a
small town like this,” said Tim Kuhn, who lives in McCleary and has
roots in the small town. “This has changed everything about the town.”

Kuhn said he hadn’t seen such a change in the town since the Bassett
murders. In August of 1995, Brian Bassett was convicted of murdering
his mother, father and little brother and sentenced to three life
terms. He was 16 at the time of the murders. A then-17-year-old friend
who participated in the killings, Nicholaus McDonald, was convicted on
two murder counts.

Those murders shook the community, Kuhn said, but did not rob it of its sense of neighborliness in nearly the same way.

Kampen said there are still the vestiges of the old community she knew. She
went to the candlelight vigil at Beerbower Park on Tuesday night.

“I was really, really surprised. I expected to just see some people in the field, and there were hundreds,” Kampen said.

Undersheriff Rick Scott of the Grays Harbor Sheriffs Office said not every last drop
of community spirit had dropped off. Local restaurants were sending
food to searchers, and the Beehive, a retirement community, had cooked
and delivered a big dinner to the McCleary Police Department. Plus, he
added, there were tons of volunteers helping to look for the little
girl.

“We appreciate the help a lot,” Scott said.

Finding Baum has been complicated by a complete lack of physical evidence, Scott said.

“It’s like she vanished into thin air,” he said. “Gone without a trace.”

Interviews with neighbors have turned up few leads, he added, and although Baum’s
computer has been sent in for forensic testing, there is no guarantee
that it will give detectives any information to help them find her.

Scott said law enforcement will step up its search to find her Friday night,
blanketing the small town to ask drivers, who may have been driving the
route Lindsey Baum walked as part of their weekly routine, if they saw
anything.

“We only get this opportunity once a week,” Scott said.

The Fourth of July holiday will force the Sheriff’s Office to spread out, though.

“We’ve got half the state at the beach,” Scott said.

In the meantime, the information vacuum has given rise to rumors, spread
both by word of mouth and the Internet, and Scott asked that anyone who
hears anything check their sources before spreading it around.

“It’s rough on the family to get some of the phone calls they’ve been getting,” Scott said.

Indeed, Kampen agreed that everyone who was with Lindsey the night she
disappeared has already been through enough that they don’t need false
information or criticism. Calling herself a glutton for punishment,
Kampen has been on the Internet, in the chat rooms, where she said she
has read plenty of jeremiads about her and her friends’ parenting
skills.

Anything other people say, Kampen said, she and Melissa Baum have already felt.

“You can’t imagine the guilt,” Kampen said.

Kampen said she has replayed that Friday evening in her head over and over. So
has her daughter, Michaela, 10, who spent the day swimming with
Lindsey. They walked together with Josh Baum, 13, to the Kampen house.
But halfway there, Michaela said they teased Josh, getting under his
skin enough so he turned around and couldn’t walk back with Lindsey.
That’s something he now regrets deeply, Kampen said.

“People are saying, ‘How could they let that girl walk by herself?’ ” Kampen said.
“It was still bright out. And this isn’t a dangerous place. This is
McCleary.”

Kampen sighed.

MCCLEARY, Wash. - Exactly one week after a 10-year-old girl vanished in
this small Western Washington mill town, detectives are out in force
trying to find leads to help solve her disappearance.

Lindsey Baum was last seen between 9 and 10 p.m. on Friday, June 26, as she
walked home from a friend's home who lives about four or five blocks
away.

An intense ground and aerial search carried out over the
following days failed to turn up any clues, and searchers scaled back
their efforts Thursday.

But now Lindsey's disappearance is being
publicized in a new way, as folks hand out fliers to people driving
through town in hopes of finding the missing girl.

One of those taking part in the latest effort is Duane Norris, who is doing what he
can to keep Lindsey's picture out there and to keep the search alive.

"The thing about it is, all it takes is one tip," he says.

Lindsey was last seen at the corner of 6th and Maple heading home from her friend's house at about 9:15 p.m last Friday.

Detectives will be out in force at that same day and time this week to see who's
around - and who may have been passing through town last Friday night.

They're willing to do anything to help kick loose a lead.

Fonda Voss is making sure visitors to nearby Straddleline ORV park are being
reminded about Lindsey's disappearance. It's a big travel destination
and one of the entrances to the Capitol Forest.

"The trails are very big. The Capitol Forest is 80,000 acres. Just keeping people aware
when they're out on the trail to just keep their eyes open. It's a big
area out there," she says.

At the request of the FBI, Clear Channel Communications also has agreed to put an alert about Lindsey up
on their brand new digital billboards through the Kent Valley.

On Friday, Lola Kling of Kent passed through McCleary.

"I am so happy about that," she said of the new digital bulletins. "I'm really hoping that we can find this little girl."

Detectives are asking anyone to report if they've seen anything suspicious, if
they've seen the little missing girl or anything out of the ordinary.
They want to bring Lindsey home on the one-week anniversary of her
disappearance.

A tipline has been set up at (866) 915-8299.

Meanwhile, FBI agents will be working through the holiday weekend, following up on dozens of tips that continue to come in.

Lindsey is 4-foot-9, 80 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes, and was last
seen wearing a light blue hooded pullover shirt and blue jeans.

MCCLEARY, Wash. -- Scott Baum is up against a heart-rending deadline.
He is getting ready to deploy to Iraq as he anxiously awaits word on
his 10-year-old daughter, who disappeared more than a week ago while
walking home from her friend's house. Baum, who lives in Tennessee, arrived in McCleary over the weekend with
his heart in a knot. The father said he had to get clearance from his
military superiors before making the trip.
On Monday the troubled father pleaded for his daughter's safe return.
"Why I'm here today is to appeal to everybody out there watching to
please bring my daughter home," Baum said on Monday. "I'm fixin' to
deploy to Iraq and tomorrow is her birthday. I would love nothing more
than to see my daughter before I have to go."
Baum hadn't seen his daughter, Lindsey Baum, in a year. He and
her mother divorced three years ago. He stayed in Tennessee and his
ex-wife moved to Washington with their daughter. Investigators do not suspect Scott Baum in the case.
"No, the only possibility that we were considering at any time was
perhaps that Lindsey, missing her father, had tried to go to him in
Tennessee," said Grays Harbor County Undersheriff Rick Scott. The missing girl set out to walk the ten blocks to her home from a
friend's house, which is roughly a 10-minute walk, on the night of June
26. But something happened in that short distance, and she never
arrived home.
Witnesses reported having seen the girl that night as she walked home along Maple Street.
On Monday nearly 60 searchers - the largest number of ground
searchers to date - searched a nearby off-road vehicle park, as well as
the hills beyond them. And the search hasn't been easy. The Capitol Forest is 80,000 acres of
steep hillsides, miles of rugged terrain and countless roadways. A change in the weather on Monday gave the search teams a second wind.
The cooler temperatures also helped the dog teams pick up scents. As the dozens of searchers spread out, Lindsey Baum's family sat and waited, anxious for any word.
"So please, if you know anything, contact the hotlines.Contact any 911
centers," said Scott Baum. "But please bring me my daughter home before
I have to leave."