History for Chron

Some 300 searchers combed the Arizona desert after 7-year-old girl stepped off her school bus and disappeared somewhere along her quarter-mile walk home.

“Not a trace of her,” a sheriff’s deputy said when he was asked about the progress of the search.

The main effort was focusing on open country east of Phoenix. Searchers used a helicopter to check wide areas of terrain without success.

A human chain made up of Mesa City Police officers, city employees and about 200 volunteers from nearby Williams Air Force Base walked the area without finding the girl.

Bus driver L.B. Coons said he last saw the girl in his rear view mirror. She was walking south toward her home.

Maricopa County Sheriff’s Capt. Frank Popello said investigators feared that someone may have abducted the girl.

“In this type of case it would normally indicate that this was the work of somebody abnormal,” Popello said.

Just before dawn, investigators picked up a man who said he was in the area. He also drove a car that matched a description given by Coons.

Popello did not identify the man, but said the man “is very reluctant to talk.”