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Press Conference Talking About Ongoing Search for Nine-Year-Old Girl

Aired August 16, 2002 - 12:13   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We think we've restored our signal there, and there it is, from Virginia.
We want to take you back to that press conference where investigators are talking about the ongoing search for a 9-year-old girl.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... police and sheriffs office, Rockingham (ph) Corrections, Franklin County Sheriff's Office are all joined in, helping us. We have a mobile agency investigative team that is following leads throughout the community and doing anything we can.

Yes, certainly, she is -- the residence is located on 220 north, a major four-lane highway. The fact that a person who committed these crimes, or persons, had quick access to a four-lane highway, and quick access to the north and south of us, so who we are looking for is responsible for the crime could be anywhere in our region, or even further than our region, so we are not limited our search to any geographical area. it is a nationwide search.

We've had several leads. Possible sightings. They have all been pursued. Nothing founded in relation to our case here in Henry County, Virginia.

Yes, we are begging you, if you know anything, do not hesitate and think you are bothering us, please call us so we can give you information, either our agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Virginia State Police or jurisdiction in the U.S. will follow that lead down and report back to us. So we urge you, the person who may be leery of calling may be the very lead we need to solve the case.

Police have come from our region here, and the immediate region, but we have also had some throughout the U.S.

That's pretty much it guys. We will try to keep up updated as much as we can. If you will keep pumping her picture and the fact she is still missing, we would appreciate it.

WHITFIELD: All right, you've been listening to investigators out in Bessett, Virginia, saying that they've received an awful lot of leads within that region of Bessett, Virginia, as well as other parts of the country in the ongoing search for 9-year-old Jennifer Short. She is presumed to have been abducted from her home, where her parents Michael Wayne Short, 50, and 36-year-old Mary Short were found dead in that home, and the Henry County Sheriff's Department has issued an Amber Alert for the missing little girl, hoping that it will bring them some positive results, as it has in more recent kidnapping cases.

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