Troopers aid in search for girl, 11 Specially trained Mass. unit combs through remote area

In West Stewartstown, N.H., on Saturday afternoon, Massachusetts State Police Sergeant Michael Chavis (left) and Trooper Paul Womble, both from the Framingham barracks, checked one of their support vehicles. (Fred Field)

By Martine Powers Globe Correspondent

CANAAN, Vt. - Massachusetts state troopers picked their way through thick thorny bushes and towering spruce trees yesterday morning, hunting for any clue to the disappearance of 11-year-old Celina Cass, who has not been seen since last Monday night in her home in nearby West Stewartstown, N.H.

The Massachusetts State Police Special Emergency Response Team pored over the ground, searching for the smallest telltale sign: a partial footprint, a snapped branch, a discarded bubble gum wrapper.

“If someone is lost in the wild, they leave hundreds or even thousands of clues,’’ said Lieutenant Robert Leverone, the commander of the Special Emergency Response Team. “We don’t go looking for a person. We go looking for clues.’’

As of last night, they said they had found none.

Local authorities have given little indication of how the investigation is progressing, and Celina’s mother and stepfather have not spoken to the news media.

But the girl’s father, Adam Laro, made a brief appearance yesterday at a late-afternoon media briefing on the investigation, pleading for anyone with information about the case to contact authorities.

“We’re all wondering where my daughter is,’’ he said, “and we want the best for her safety.’’

Senior Assistant Attorney General Jane Young told reporters at the briefing that she could not release any updates about the investigation.

When asked during a later phone interview about reports of a red pickup truck being investigated in connection with the case, Young would only say that police took a vehicle that had been parked in the driveway of Celina’s home into custody Friday or Saturday.

Young would not say who owned the vehicle or whether authorities have recovered any evidence from it. She said the case was still being treated as a missing child investigation, and authorities have no suspects in the disappearance.

Law enforcement agencies from Canada and elsewhere in the region - New Hampshire and Vermont state police, the FBI, the US Border Patrol, and the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department - have assisted in the hunt for Celina.

On Saturday, they were joined by 10 members of the Massachusetts State Police, six of them from the emergency response unit, who brought with them all-terrain vehicles and an amphibious vehicle designed to maneuver through brush and swampland.

Trooper John Fanning, 30, a member of the special response unit, said he was called at 11 p.m. Friday and told to be ready to travel to help with the search for Cass by 5 a.m. the next day. He packed quickly and quietly at his Hanover, Mass., home, trying not to wake his wife and three sons.

Yesterday, he said he was optimistic that the unit’s search would yield clues that might help in the investigation.Continued...