Massive Search Underway for Missing Zahra
For the fifth day in a row, police launched a massive search on Thursday at a remote property north of Morganton for any signs of the missing Zahra Clare Baker.
Sheriff Deputies, police and firefighters received their instructions and then went to work, "Arm to arm to the other side of that building," said Burke County Sheriff’s Deputy John McDevitt.
"Anything at all, any sign, any clothing, anything at all,” said Burke County investigator David South.
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Friends: Missing girl had happy life in Australia
Though Zahra Clare Baker was battling cancer that forced her to wear hearing aids and a prosthetic leg, friends who knew her in Australia say she was an outgoing, caring, happy girl.
Then her lonely single father moved her halfway around the world to North Carolina so he could live with a woman he met on the Internet. Now the 10-year-old with the freckles and wide smile is missing and presumed dead, and friends and family thousands of miles away are waiting anxiously for word about her fate.
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Zahra Baker's grandmother: 'We want our darling girl back'
The grandmother of Zahra Baker, the 10-year-old girl who is missing and a presumed homicide victim, has told an Australian newspaper that her family is "stunned and shocked" by what has happened to the little girl.
And a friend told the newspaper that Zahra is "the most determined little girl I have ever met."
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Drug use kept relatives from contacting DSS about Zahra
Two women who have spoken about the family stability involving a missing girl from Hickory now claim one of them was addicted to drugs – and that contributed to why they never directly called authorities about possible problems at the missing girl's home.
Brittney Bentley, who was married to the nephew of Elisa Baker, told WBT Radio on Wednesday that she was a drug addict and that she was sorry for not contacting the North Carolina Department of Social Services after allegedly observing problems pertaining to Zahra Claire Baker's home life.
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video GMA Community Speaks Out
Authorities search every pieceof father's workplace for remains of NC girl
Authorities in North Carolina say they are searching "every piece" of a tree service company for traces of Zahra Clare Baker, a 10-year-old girl who police say is presumed dead and whose father is uncooperative in the case.
Burke County Sheriff John McDevitt said investigators are conducting a "grid search" on Thursday of Real Tree Services in Morganton, N.C., where the girl's father, Adam Baker, works as a laborer.
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Cops: N.C. girl may have been alive in mid Sept.
A missing 10-year-old may have been alive when her family moved to a new home in North Carolina in mid-September, police said Thursday.
Investigators are having trouble finding anyone outside Zahra Clare Baker's household in Hickory who has seen the girl alive in recent months, making it difficult to narrow down places to search.
Police say the girl, who used hearing aids and a prosthetic leg because of bone cancer, has been killed. She was reported missing over the weekend by her father and stepmother, but police do not believe their story about the last time they saw her in her bed.
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Caldwell school officials tried to help Zahra Baker
New details are emerging into 10-year-old Zahra Baker’s life before she was reported missing last Saturday.
The Baker family lived in Caldwell County before moving to Hickory about six weeks ago.
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Should Schools have raised red flag in Zahra Baker Case
On Thursday, Channel 9 investigated why someone hadn’t notice Zahra Baker was missing sooner.
A lot of times, the schools are the first ones to pick up on these things, but in this case no education officials at any level, in any county, knew where Baker was.
Channel 9 learned that Baker finished last school year in Caldwell County, but then she didn't show up for the first few days of school this year.
Channel 9 spoke with a school spokesperson, Libby Brown, on Thursday. She said a school counselor called Baker's parents and that Baker's parents said they moved to Hickory and were probably going to home-school Baker.
Brown said, "There was no more contact with the family. They refused to speak to the school."
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