Delaware County Daily Times - Sept 3, 1999 Article

“Search the world”

Delaware County Daily Times (Primos - Upper Darby, PA) - Friday, September 3, 1999

Author: ROSE QUINN ; Of the Times Staff

ELKTON, Md. -- A little girl about the size of Katelyn Rivera-Helton peeked through the blinds of a Blair Shore trailer home yesterday, wide-eyed and grinning.

The trailer, and the quiet area surrounding it along the Elk River in Cecil County, have been the focus of an extensive search for the missing 20-month-old. It's where Katelyn 's father and jailed accused kidnapper Robert N. Rivera spent the night before his arrest and told police he gave his daughter away to a couple at Longwood Gardens in Chester County.

Residents in the private community -- about 40 minutes from Katelyn 's hometown of Upper Chichester -- are well-versed in the mystery. One man, who was working outside his Wood Duck Lane residence, said people he knows are holding positive thoughts for the little girl.

But it's getting harder.

He pointed to a nearby tree.

Tied around one of the branches was a long piece of blue and white striped plastic tape.

"They put them there,'' he said of police. ""They're all over.''

Detective Robert Jones of the Cecil County Sheriff's Law Enforcement Division has been coordinating search efforts here, as well as tracking daily leads in the joint-probe with the F.B.I. and the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division.

As Jones' supervising homicide detective Sgt. Bob Irwin put it, "We red-lined him to do nothing but this.''

A photo of Katelyn sits on Jones' desk.

"This is my life until it is over, until I find her,'' said Jones, a rookie detective with two years in the Cecil County sheriff's office who has been relying lately on a combination of evidence and gut feeling.

Both Jones and Irwin said the plastic tree ties were merely markers for teams as they searched the woods along the narrow, gravel-covered roads lined by properties ranging from dilapidated trailers to what Irwin estimated as $250,000 homes.

"Mr. Rivera hasn't said what he did with the child,'' Irwin said. "When a child disappears and you have no leads, where are you going to look? You are going to search the world.''

Mid-morning yesterday, a woman inside the targeted trailer on Wood Duck Lane called the young child away from the door. A man who answered a knock at the door had no comment and immediately drew the shade.

Earlier, the woman told television reporters that Rivera, 33, arrived at the property the night of Katelyn 's Aug. 10 kidnapping from daycare, without the child. Rivera was asked to leave the next morning because of his odd behavior, she said at that time.

Later, they discovered that the shovel in their shed was missing. Police have recovered it from a nearby construction site on Route 40.

No one has labeled the priority case a homicide. But searches to date have include a portion of the river, miles of dense woods within the established Blair Shore Road-Henderson Point-Wood Duck Lane boundary, and the construction site.

Now, according to Delaware County District Attorney Patrick Meehan, authorities are interested in the whereabouts of a standard-issue tire iron missing from the red Ford Escort Rivera was driving at the time of the kidnapping.

Helicopters and K-9 teams have been utilized in the exhaustive search, now in its 25th day.

On Tuesday, Jones coordinated a massive search at the trailer site and surrounding area, comprised of Cecil County deputy sheriffs and fire police, Delaware County detectives and search and rescue teams from both Delaware County and Perry Point, Md., at the trailer site and surrounding area.

According to Cecil County Law Enforcement Division Capt. Ronald Plummer, Jones alone clocked nearly 12 hours that day.

Plummer wouldn't say such a schedule was routine, since aspects of the probe change daily. "But I won't say it's untypical,'' he said.

According to Jones, less intense searches continue daily, based on countless leads of every imaginable scenario throughout the 368-square-mile county of about 80,000 people.

Supposing what Rivera might have done, what he might have been thinking, or even what route he might have taken to Blair Shore that day is anyone's guess. "There's always someone searching somewhere,'' Jones said.

Meanwhile, they follow every lead, every phone call.

They keep careful notes.

And they plan as far ahead as they can.