New ground search for missing Wisconsin girl to start

BARRON, Wis. (AP) — The search for a Wisconsin girl whose parents were killed in the family’s home last week was to expand Tuesday with as many as 2,000 volunteers expected to comb the area.

The new ground search for Jayme Closs comes several days after an effort with 100 volunteers turned up nothing. Jayme, 13, has been missing since Oct. 15, when deputies responding to a 911 call found someone had broken into the family’s home and shot James and Denise Closs.

Authorities believe Jayme, who is not a suspect in her parents’ deaths, was abducted.

Meanwhile, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said Monday that two cars are being sought in the case .

Fitzgerald said investigators are looking for a red or orange Dodge Challenger and a black Ford Edge or black Acura MDX that may have been traveling near the Closs family’s home on the night of the killings.

He said he didn’t have information on the cars’ license plates.

Fitzgerald said investigators have received more than 1,300 tips and have closed 1,100 of them. Some of the tips led to the decision to resume the ground search, he said, though he declined to elaborate. A sheriff’s deputy and agents from the state Department of Justice and the FBI mapped the area by helicopter Monday afternoon in preparation for Tuesday’s search.

“We’ve determined we’d like to search a bigger search area based on information our investigators have collected,” Fitzgerald said. “These tips have led us to this.”

Jayme’s classmates held a vigil for her Monday night at the Barron High School football stadium.

Barron, a town of about 3,400, is about 80 miles (128 kilometers) northeast of Minneapolis.