Search for missing Florida girl to expand
Empty beer bottles sought as clues
 |  Sarah Michelle Lunde, 13, was last seen on Saturday. |
| |
| | SARAH MICHELLE LUNDE | Age: 13, born August 30
Ht., Wt.: 5 feet 3; 176 lbs.
Description: White; brown hair below shoulders usually worn in ponytail; hazel eyes, last seen in white T-shirt, orange and blue basketball shorts; green cast on left wrist
|
|
RUSKIN, Florida (CNN) -- The number of volunteers looking for 13-year-old Sarah Michelle Lunde, who disappeared in Florida last weekend, is expected to swell Saturday as the search spreads south of her home to Little Manatee River State Park, a discouraged sheriff said.
"At this time ... I don't have any great news here. Again disappointment. We have not found anything that would bring her home," Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee told reporters late Friday afternoon. He said police had received 75 potential leads.
Searchers will begin combing the state park, which has more than 2,400 acres, and the banks of the river that runs through it. So far, the search has been focused within a three-quarter-mile radius of Sarah's home in Ruskin, about 10 miles south of Tampa.
Earlier Friday, searchers found "lots" of empty Bud or Bud Light beer bottles in the vicinity of the girl's home after police said one of them may hold a clue to her disappearance, sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter told CNN.
The bottles may undergo DNA testing.
Beer bottles and mother's boyfriend
Sheriff's Capt. Craig Latimer would not explain why searchers were asked to keep an eye out for the bottles, but police told CNN it may have a connection to David Onstott, a 36-year-old convicted sex offender -- currently in county custody on unrelated charges -- who recently ended a relationship with Sarah's mother.
Police have not called Onstott a suspect, and his attorney has denied that Onstott had anything to do with Sarah's disappearance.
Authorities also have not ruled out the possibility that Sarah ran away. A $10,000 reward has been posted for her return.
According to Sarah's 17-year-old brother, Onstott was at the family home early Sunday morning -- hours after she was last seen. The brother told police it was the first time he had seen Onstott in months, and that Onstott picked up a half-full beer bottle from a table before leaving.
Carter said Onstott was at the home looking for Sarah's mother, Kelly May.
Gee said on CNN's "American Morning" on Friday that that Onstott "is one of the people that we have looked at, as well as others." Gee said he would not "label anybody at this time."
Sarah was last seen by her brother at her home when she returned from a church function Saturday night. Her brother went out, and when he returned early Sunday she was gone. Her mother was out of town, and reported her missing Monday. A national missing-persons alert was issued Tuesday.
"We're keeping the faith," Gee said. Friday, there were about 400 volunteers and law enforcement officers in the search.
Troubled histories
Authorities arrested Onstott on Tuesday in Apollo Beach, Florida, north of Ruskin, on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, the sheriff's office said. Deputies said Onstott threatened a man with a screwdriver during an argument.
He was arraigned Thursday on a charge of failing to register as a sex offender, and remains in the Hillsborough County Jail. Although his bond was set at $250,000, Onstott also was being held on a drunken driving warrant from Michigan, sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway said. Because there is no bond on the Michigan charge, Onstott is being held without bond, Callaway said.
Onstott has a 1995 sexual battery conviction for assaulting a female acquaintance in her home, for which he served six years in prison and two years probation, Callaway said.
Gee told CNN on Friday that Onstott has been cooperative.
There are 24 sex offenders in the Ruskin area, police have said; 23 have been questioned. and they believe the 24th left the area before Sarah disappeared.
Sarah has spent time in the state's foster care system, and, when she was 9, authorities ordered her hospitalized to ensure she did not hurt herself, law enforcement authorities said.
She was last seen wearing a green half-cast on her left forearm due to a wrist injury.
On Thursday, volunteers at the scene included Mark Lunsford, father of Jessica Lunsford, the 9-year-old abducted and killed in February in Homosassa, Florida, by a convicted sex offender who had been living across the street from her home.
CNN' Susan Candiotti and Richie Phillips in Ruskin contributed to this report.
