BARRON, WIS. – They left their homes and their jobs at midday Thursday to answer a sheriff's call to help look for one of their own.
Trudging through knee-high brush, dozens of volunteers from the small towns of northwestern Wisconsin turned out in early afternoon to scour the ditches of Hwy. 8 near this Barron County town, desperately searching for the tiniest of clues that could lead them to a 13-year-old girl who vanished in the night and who may well be in danger.
In all, there were 100 of them, from places like Rice Lake and Almena and Cameron. Working under a cloudless October sky with state and law enforcement officials, they covered 14 miles of road, all in hopes of turning up a key piece of evidence that could lead them to Jayme Closs, who disappeared early Monday after her parents were fatally shot while she was in the family's house on the outskirts of Barron.
"I want to stand with the community," said Renee Decker, who left her home in Rice Lake to help search.
"I've got kids," she added as her eyes welled with tears. "They're grown. But this is still tough."
Despite the volunteer turnout, Thursday's ground search ended in frustration. Four days after James and Denise Closs were murdered and their daughter disappeared, investigators seemed no closer to solving the mystery of what happened Monday morning in the Closs home or what has become of Jayme.
Investigators have no suspects, they have no weapon. Thursday's search, which lasted several hours, turned up "nothing of evidentiary value," Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said.
But the volunteers brought all the determination they could muster.