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Modesto Authorities Running Out Of Hope

POSTED: 7:28 a.m. PST January 9, 2003
UPDATED: 5:47 p.m. PST January 15, 2003

MODESTO, Calif. -- Modesto Police admitted Wednesday that they were fighting an uphill battle in their race to find Laci Peterson alive.

The 27-year-old Modesto woman has been missing now for more than three weeks and the Stanislaus County sheriff said he believes it's very unlikely that she was being held somewhere against her will.

"The more time that goes by, the greater chance we have of not finding the victim alive," Stanislaus County sheriff's Sgt. Bill Heyne told the Modesto Bee. "And the more time that goes by, if the victim is dead, the less chance we have of solving it."

Meanwhile, Police Chief Roy Wasden told the paper that much of the search has been focused on recovering a body.

"You exhaust the logical search places," he told the Bee. "And at some point you switch from looking for an injured, live person. That happens between 72 and 96 hours. For much of our search, when we're looking in places underwater, we're looking for a body."

But authorities said they were continuing to search and track down leads.

On Tuesday, family and friends of Peterson said they would open up operations in Southern California this weekend in an effort to turn up any new leads in the case.

A command center similar to the one already in operation at Modesto's Red Lion Inn was planned for a SoCal hotel and volunteers were to scour the area, putting up posters asking for information.

In an effort to keep the media focus on the case, family members appeared on national television Monday night. They remained solid in their support of Scott Peterson, Laci's husband, who has yet to be cleared as a suspect in the case.

"He's very emotional," said his father Lee Peterson. "He'd break down. He wouldn't be able to finish an interview. And he doesn't want the media focus on him. He wants it on having Laci's picture in front of the nation so that someone may report something."

Laci's stepfather, Lee Grantski, said he didn't find Scott's story about going fishing on Christmas Eve, the day Laci disappeared, unusual.

"It might seem unusual that he went fishing by himself but I go fishing by myself a lot," he said. "And forbid something happen here because I do it all the time."

Peterson, who was eight months pregnant when she disappeared, had planned to have a baby shower Saturday, and volunteers said they were relieved when the search turned up the anchor rather than a body at the Berkeley Marina.

"They've remained focused," said Kim Petersen, executive director of the Carole Sund-Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, a group assisting the volunteer effort and offering a reward for information leading to Peterson's return.

Volunteers are working to distribute more flyers about the case, Petersen said, trying to keep the

hummmm, they forgot to finish the story!....LOL....