Police may have located a body in their search of the Berkeley Marina for a missing Modesto woman, but they can't know for sure until they return to the water, probably Saturday, officials said Thursday.
Bad weather and fatigue forced them to leave the water Thursday, after a sophisticated sonar detected what could be a body lying at the bottom of the fairly shallow marina, said Modesto police Sgt. Ron Cloward.
More bad weather Friday was likely to delay the search another day.
``I'd love to put somebody in there (Friday),'' said Cloward, who is leading the massive hunt for 27-year-old Laci Peterson, who disappeared on Christmas Eve, eight months pregnant with a boy. Cloward expressed frustration at the wait.
``Does it make you hopeful you can bring some closure? Yes. Does it make you hopeful that there's a body down there? No.''
Thursday was the third time Modesto police had returned to the marina over the past week in their search for Peterson. For the first time, they used a sophisticated ``side scan'' sonar system that creates computer models of objects below the water's surface.
Cloward said the sonar device picked up the possible body ``way out'' in the marina. As the weather worsened Thursday, divers battled stiff currents. Weather forecasts paint Saturday as the earliest day to resume the dive, Cloward said. He said leaders of the marina search were not concerned about the object floating away.
Peterson's husband, Scott Peterson, told police he went fishing alone at the marina on the day of his wife's disappearance, leaving at 9:30 a.m. and returning in late afternoon to find her gone. While police have not named him a suspect, they have not ruled him out.
On Saturday, search dogs seemed to sniff out something around Cesar Chavez Park at the marina. About the same time, police pulled a blue tarp out of the marina waters. The tarp remains in Modesto for testing, and police would not say whether it held significance in the case.
Earlier Thursday, Cloward said the repeated search efforts at the marina did not reflect any added information, only diligence.
``We want to completely know that when we drive out of the area, we've searched it all,'' he said.
Authorities said they have failed to find any solid witnesses at the marina who may have seen Scott Peterson, his bronze Ford F150 pickup and his 14-foot Gamefisher aluminum skiff. Police divers also ended a search Thursday of Lake Tulloch, a popular fishing spot east of Modesto.
Indeed, while police pledged to keep hunting for Laci Peterson in the rural byways and waterways of several counties surrounding Stanislaus, they admitted to having few leads in the widely publicized case, despite more than 2,600 calls to a tip line.
``It's unusual. It's not normal to not have leads,'' said Modesto police Detective Doug Ridenour. ``But that's where we're at.''
Calls have come in from as far as Nova Scotia and Australia, with 300 claiming psychic knowledge of Peterson's whereabouts. Police have not looked to psychics for help.
Since Peterson's disappearance, hundreds of volunteers, dozens of officers from several police agencies and a cadre of bloodhounds and water-trained, corpse-sniffing dogs have aided in the search.