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CNN Saturday Morning News

Police Have No Leads in Child Abduction in Virginia

Aired August 17, 2002 - 09:03   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's turn now to a story we've been following, yet another missing child to tell you about. In Virginia, authorities say the crucial time for finding Jennifer Renee Short slipping by quickly. She is the 9-year-old girl who disappeared early Thursday morning. She was gone when her parents were found shot to death in their home in Basset, Virginia. CNN's Jeanne Meserve is there; she brings us an update. Hello, Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles. The bottom line of a briefing we had a few minutes ago is this: Still no sign of Jennifer Short and still no promising leads in this investigation.

Forty-eight hours after she was discovered, apparently abducted, the local sheriff said this, the longer the timeframe, the more desperate it becomes. He told us a little bit about what the investigation would look like today.

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SHERIFF H.F. CASSELL, HENRY COUNTY, VIRGINIA: We will be interviewing potential witnesses, people that may have seen anything. We'll be interviewing family members. We'll be interviewing past employees, present employees, associates. This is what we've been doing for the last two days.

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MESERVE: The sheriff says that one of the challenges is that Mr. Short ran a business which involved hauling mobile homes, and he employed a lot of low cost labor, some of it migrant labor. Those people hard to track down and interview, he said.

We did get a couple of new nuggets today from the briefing and also from off-camera conversations. One, the sheriff says he believes whoever did this was acquainted with the family. He wouldn't tell us why, whether it was based on a hunch or whether there is some physical evidence to indicate that, but that is definitely his feeling and he says the feeling of other investigators.

He also said that nothing has been discovered missing from the home. This would apparently indicate that robbery was not the motive here. Also, he indicated that there had been absolutely no progress on conducting a timeline. This is something they hope to put together. If they can figure out what was normal or what was abnormal for activities around this household, it might give the investigation some promising leads. He said as far as he knew, his deputies had never been called to this house and he said there was absolutely no indication of any sort of drug involvement by anybody in this family.

He did say that there will be a search effort today. It appears it will be scaled back, however. Searchers feel they have gone over the area in the immediate vicinity of the home over and over again; don't think there is anything there. Miles, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Well, Jeanne, unless there's something they're not sharing with us, it seems as if they are stumped?

MESERVE: It does seem that way, Miles, to be perfectly frank. They still say that they have no description of what Jennifer was wearing when she was taken, they have no description of a vehicle, no description of a suspect. Frankly, there is not much to go on besides the very sparse description of a girl and a photograph.

Of course, the interviews are continuing. They are hoping that some of those will lead them down a promising path, but at least publicly, they're not saying, yes, they have found that path.

O'BRIEN: All right, hoping to catch a break there in Virginia. CNN's Jeanne Meserve, who will be keeping us posted. Thank you very much.

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