SALMON, Idaho: More than 150 law enforcement officers on foot and horseback yesterday spent a second day combing the central Idaho wilderness in search of a California man suspected of killing a friend and her son and abducting her teenage daughter.
A national manhunt for fugitive James Lee DiMaggio, 40, and 16-year-old Hannah Anderson focused on the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness after a group of backcountry horsemen reported to Idaho authorities that on Wednesday they had encountered a pair they believed to be the suspect and the teen. One horseman told police he exchanged casual pleasantries with them and that their appearance on a trail to a mountain lake was odd but not cause for alarm, authorities said. Police searched the trailhead for clues and found DiMaggio’s car, stripped of its licence plates and covered with brush. Police feared the car could be rigged with explosives but a bomb squad found none on Friday.
Authorities in Idaho said yesterday that no other sightings have been reported and air, land and river searches have so far uncovered no signs of the pair in rugged mountainous terrain crisscrossed by sheer granite canyons and whitewater rapids.
Joe DiMaggio, the suspect’s uncle, raised concerns yesterday about his nephew’s state of mind. He said his nephew has been haunted by the suicide of his father and the cancer death of his mother some years back.
“I wish I knew what he was thinking,” said DiMaggio, who has been in sporadic touch with his nephew in recent years.
The telecommunications technician is wanted in the killing of Christina Anderson, 44, and 8-year-old Ethan and in the disappearance of Hannah.
REUTERS
