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| Updated: 3/12 11:35 pm |
Published: 3/12 5:43 pm |
WALNUT RIDGE, AR - The search for missing teenager Sidney Randall continued throughout the night. Police, Game and Fish, and dogs are searching the woods, creeks, and hunting areas they believe Sidney’s stepfather would have been familiar with.
Sidney’s mother says she wishes she could be out there, but police have asked her to stay home and wait.
“It’s very hard to stay by the phone when your baby girl is missing and you want to be out there,” says Denise Cornell, who has been waiting by the phone for days. “They say the best thing I can do is be there and stay home in case she calls and needs someone to pick her up, or if they need anything.”
The last time she saw her daughter Sidney, it was Saturday night. Since then, the 14-year-old pageant lover has become the subject of an intense search. Search crews are picking apart the county map, zeroing in on farms, creek beds, any place they think there is a chance Sidney might be.
They started near an area off County Road 438 where her stepfather, John Cornell, was found shot to death from an apparent suicide. Turning up nothing, they are now moving further out toward the county lines.
Anxiously waiting inside, the only line Denise Cornell is focused on is her phone, jumping at every ring, hoping it is the one.
“We’re waiting on that call to say they’ve found her,” says Denise.
WALNUT RIDGE, AR -- It's all hands on deck in a search for a missing teenager.
The main suspect in her disappearance is dead, and right now there's no sign of 14-year-old Sidney Randall, who has been missing since Saturday.
Searchers are combing county farmland and asking for surveillance video from Walmart and other places where she may have been spotted since her last confirmed sighting at 10:00 Saturday night.
Everyone in Walnut Ridge is on alert and hoping there is still a chance to bring her home safe.
Randall's picture is plastered on doors and signs across Walnut Ridge, and her disappearance is on nearly everyone's mind.
"Really shocking, 'cause we all have kids and live a few blocks from them," says store clerk Misty Noblin.
Clerks at this convenience store say like most others in the small town, Randall and her stepfather often stopped by.
"I've known her mother for a long time," says store clerk Denise Scott. "It's heartbreaking. We all have kids."
Authorities found Randall's stepfather, John Cornell, dead in a ditch on county farmland Monday, and now they're searching the same area and places he was familiar with, hoping to find a sign of Sidney.
"Mr Cornell was a big outdoor huntsman," says Walnut Ridge Police Chief Richey Thatcher. "He lived in this area his whole life; he was familiar with back roads."
While waiting for answers, community members are praying for the best and raising money for the family already experiencing one of the worst tragedies this town's ever seen.
Police say Randall's mother told them her daughter appeared to be getting along just fine for the past few months, and that they didn't have a history of domestic or sexual abuse in the home.
Investigators have been on campus talking to students; trying to find out if Sidney said anything that could tip them off to where to find her.
