Two-day search of Styx River area yields no evidence in disappearance of missing Mobile woman

By John Underwood independent@gulfcoastnewspapers.com
Posted 6/8/12

ROBERTSDALE, Alabama --- Two days of searching in the Styx River area have yielded no evidence to the whereabouts of a missing 19-year-old whose last known destination was reportedly in the Florida-border community of Baldwin County.

“I think …

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Two-day search of Styx River area yields no evidence in disappearance of missing Mobile woman

Posted

ROBERTSDALE, Alabama --- Two days of searching in the Styx River area have yielded no evidence to the whereabouts of a missing 19-year-old whose last known destination was reportedly in the Florida-border community of Baldwin County.

“I think (not finding anything in Styx River) is in itself a clue that we can take and move forward with the investigation,” said Brad Dennis in a phone interview on Friday. Dennis is the National Director of Search Operation for the KlaasKIDS Foundation, a California-based organization helping with the search.

More than 200 volunteers turned out to help with the search, including crews from the Monroe County Rescue Squad, Escambia County (Fla.) Rescue Squad, Rosinton Volunteer Fire Department, Mobile Police Department, Baldwin County Sheriff’s Department, Baldwin County sheriff’s Search and Rescue Squad and Southwest Panhandle Search and Rescue.

The Rosinton Fire Station was set up as a command post over the two days. Dennis said Friday that the search in the Styx River area has been suspended for now.

“Where we go from here really depends on the results of law enforcement's investigations into the case,” Dennis said. “We can certainly revisit this area if that’s what law enforcement wants us to do.”

In an interview last week, Cpl. Christopher Levy, public information officer with the Mobile Police Department, said that the parents of Brittney Nicole Wood reported her missing on June 2.

According to her parents, Levy said, she left their Tillman’s Corner home on May 30 and said she was going to a friend’s house. When they had not heard from her by June 2, they called and reported her missing.

Wood's family members reported her last cell phone transmission was located less than a mile away from her uncle's home in the area. Concern escalated when the uncle, Donnie Wood, was found dead at his Fairhope home about a week later of an apparent self-inflicted gun-shot wound.

Volunteers spent Wednesday and Thursday, combing an area within a five-mile radius of the uncle’s home, Dennis said. Volunteers conducted a three-prong search, including a door-to-door canvas of the area talking to people in the area who might have seen Wood to get any helpful information; a road-side sweep of the area in hopes of finding clothing or any other items that Wood might have been carrying at the time of her disappearance; then a wide sweep of any open areas.

Dennis said plans have also been discussed to organize searches around the uncle’s home in Fairhope where he reportedly took his own life and areas around Mobile where Wood was last seen.

Dennis also said he had no knowledge of reports that Wood’s phone was turned on six days after she disappeared.

Wood is described as 5 foot 1 with dirty blond hair and blue eyes and weighs 105 pounds. She was last seen wearing a blue tank top, blue jean shorts and white flip flops. She was carrying a pink or teal tote type bag in which she was carrying an unknown quantity of additional clothing, a red curling iron, cell phone and makeup bag. She also smokes Newport Menthol cigarettes.

“Heaven forbid if she was taken from the area, her abductors might have tried to discard any items she might have been carrying,” Dennis said in addressing volunteers on Wedneday. “Those are the types of things we are looking for.”

Anyone with information on Wood’s whereabouts should call the Mobile Police Department at 251-208-7211 or KlaasKIDS at 1-855-733-5567.