Post by happyhaddock on Jul 21, 2006 14:59:46 GMT -5
Police continue search
Family members call on abductors to safely return missing 29-year-old
Web posted Friday, April 16, 2004
By Jeremy Craig and Greg Rickabaugh | Staff Writers
The family of a pregnant Augusta woman begged Friday for her safe return as the desperate search garnered national attention.
Angie Batton with Dogs South K-9 Search and Rescue holds a bag containing clothing belonging to Tamara Dunstan during a search at the house Mrs. Dunstan was last seen. The 29 year-old dissappeared sometime Thursday afternoon.
Chris Thelen/staff
Posters have been posted throughout downtown and in the Walton Way area to alert residents about Mrs. Dunstan's abduction.
Chris Thelen/Staff
Bernard Dunstan III, left, husband of Tamara Dunstan, accompaniesTamara's parents, Faye Lewis Cundey, middle, and Dr. David Cundey at Bernard Dunstan's father's house on. The family still had recieved no word on the location of Tamara.
"What I want to do is plea for my daughter," said Faye Lewis Cundey, the mother of Tamara Dunstan, 29, who police say was abducted Thursday from Mrs. Cundey's residence on Kipling Drive. "Please let her go. She is an angel. She never hurt anybody."
The woman's family sat down late Friday for an interview on Fox News Channel, which was broadcast live from a Walton Way home where they were gathered with friends to wait for any news on the search.
Friday passed, and Richmond County sheriff's investigators could not deliver the news the woman's family wanted to hear. But there were developments.
Investigators found a suspicious Ford Mustang and two men they wanted to question, sheriff's Maj. Ken Autry said. The men, spotted in the Kipling Drive area Thursday, were working for a tree service and had been hired by a neighbor, the major said. They are not suspects.
After cancelling that lookout, authorities issued a new one late Friday for a pickup truck, described as a light blue or teal, late-model pickup that might be a Nissan. It has a missing tailgate that has been replaced by plywood. The person in the truck, a white male in his mid-20s, is wanted only for questioning, Maj. Autry said.
Even as Fox News host Greta Van Susteren asked family members on national TV whether Mrs. Dunstan might have simply gone on vacation, Sheriff Ronnie Strength politely asked Augusta reporters not to turn the matter into a Laci Peterson affair. He said the woman's husband, Bernard Dunstan III, has never been a target of the investigation.
The sheriff said Mrs. Dunstan likely stepped into a burglary at her mother's west Augusta home and was kidnapped by the intruders.
On Friday, Mr. Dunstan went on TV himself, talking directly to his wife.
"We are not giving up,'' he said. "We will find you, and we will bring you home."
The couple's first anniversary is in June, and Mrs. Dunstan is three months pregnant with their first child.
Mrs. Dunstan works as a pediatric nurse at the Medical College of Georgia Children's Medical Center, where her co-workers had a hard time working Friday. Hospital officials brought in counselors.
The family revealed more details Friday of the circumstances surrounding Mrs. Dunstan's disappearance.
Mrs. Cundey said she talked to her daughter by phone at about 3 p.m. Thursday while Mrs. Dunstan was at Target. Her daughter planned to drop a birthday gift for her by her house.
She called Mrs. Dunstan at about 4 p.m. but got no answer. When she came home at about 5:15 p.m., she found that someone had broken into the house. Investigators were then notified.
Investigators say there is every reason to believe Mrs. Dunstan is alive.
An employee at the Time Saver Food store at Boy Scout Road said police had been by Thursday to look at security video tapes.
Also on Friday afternoon, officials continued to scour the area of Kipling Drive and a wooded area behind the property using search dogs.
The Georgia State Patrol Aviation unit, based in Thomson, assisted the search with a helicopter. Using night-vision and infrared imaging technology, authorities searched parts of Richmond County, said Cpl. Herbert Craven, a pilot with the unit.
He said the unit will remain on standby today to assist authorities. Federal investigators also have been enlisted.
Ed Reinhold, the chief of the FBI's Augusta office, said federal charges may result from the investigation. He said several local leads have come about as a result of the investigation.
Billboards alerting the public to Mrs. Dunstan's disappearance will appear around town, said Brian Hatch, who works for a local advertising agency and is a family friend.
Mr. Hatch said Lamar Outdoor Advertising will donate billboards, and a printing company is making the billboard material as a donation.
"There's a lot of people trying to do what they can," he said.
Meanwhile, friends, family and others have circulated a poster created by the sheriff's office. The posters, which show Mrs. Dunstan in a wedding veil, lined utility poles along Walton Way and Highland Avenue.
Businesses along Boy Scout Road also had the posters in their windows. By evening, more businesses had posted them.
Dr. David Cundey, Mrs. Dunstan's father, said a family member has gone as far as Newberry, S.C., to distribute the fliers of the Clemson University graduate.
Dr. Cundey also pleaded for his daughter's safe return.
"The people who did this, if they would just contact us," he said. "Don't harm her."
Staff Writer Kate Lewis contributed to this article.
Reach Jeremy Craig and Greg Rickabaugh at (706) 724-0851 or newsroom@augustachronicle.com.
FINDING MRS. DUNSTAN
The family of Tamara Dunstan is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to finding her. Anyone with information about Mrs. Dunstan's whereabouts is asked to call the Richmond County Sheriff's Office at 821-1080.
--From the Saturday, April 17, 2004 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle
(It looks like they have professional police officeers at work here. Aren't they lucky this isn't the Keystone cops from Modesto?)
Family members call on abductors to safely return missing 29-year-old
Web posted Friday, April 16, 2004
By Jeremy Craig and Greg Rickabaugh | Staff Writers
The family of a pregnant Augusta woman begged Friday for her safe return as the desperate search garnered national attention.
Angie Batton with Dogs South K-9 Search and Rescue holds a bag containing clothing belonging to Tamara Dunstan during a search at the house Mrs. Dunstan was last seen. The 29 year-old dissappeared sometime Thursday afternoon.
Chris Thelen/staff
Posters have been posted throughout downtown and in the Walton Way area to alert residents about Mrs. Dunstan's abduction.
Chris Thelen/Staff
Bernard Dunstan III, left, husband of Tamara Dunstan, accompaniesTamara's parents, Faye Lewis Cundey, middle, and Dr. David Cundey at Bernard Dunstan's father's house on. The family still had recieved no word on the location of Tamara.
"What I want to do is plea for my daughter," said Faye Lewis Cundey, the mother of Tamara Dunstan, 29, who police say was abducted Thursday from Mrs. Cundey's residence on Kipling Drive. "Please let her go. She is an angel. She never hurt anybody."
The woman's family sat down late Friday for an interview on Fox News Channel, which was broadcast live from a Walton Way home where they were gathered with friends to wait for any news on the search.
Friday passed, and Richmond County sheriff's investigators could not deliver the news the woman's family wanted to hear. But there were developments.
Investigators found a suspicious Ford Mustang and two men they wanted to question, sheriff's Maj. Ken Autry said. The men, spotted in the Kipling Drive area Thursday, were working for a tree service and had been hired by a neighbor, the major said. They are not suspects.
After cancelling that lookout, authorities issued a new one late Friday for a pickup truck, described as a light blue or teal, late-model pickup that might be a Nissan. It has a missing tailgate that has been replaced by plywood. The person in the truck, a white male in his mid-20s, is wanted only for questioning, Maj. Autry said.
Even as Fox News host Greta Van Susteren asked family members on national TV whether Mrs. Dunstan might have simply gone on vacation, Sheriff Ronnie Strength politely asked Augusta reporters not to turn the matter into a Laci Peterson affair. He said the woman's husband, Bernard Dunstan III, has never been a target of the investigation.
The sheriff said Mrs. Dunstan likely stepped into a burglary at her mother's west Augusta home and was kidnapped by the intruders.
On Friday, Mr. Dunstan went on TV himself, talking directly to his wife.
"We are not giving up,'' he said. "We will find you, and we will bring you home."
The couple's first anniversary is in June, and Mrs. Dunstan is three months pregnant with their first child.
Mrs. Dunstan works as a pediatric nurse at the Medical College of Georgia Children's Medical Center, where her co-workers had a hard time working Friday. Hospital officials brought in counselors.
The family revealed more details Friday of the circumstances surrounding Mrs. Dunstan's disappearance.
Mrs. Cundey said she talked to her daughter by phone at about 3 p.m. Thursday while Mrs. Dunstan was at Target. Her daughter planned to drop a birthday gift for her by her house.
She called Mrs. Dunstan at about 4 p.m. but got no answer. When she came home at about 5:15 p.m., she found that someone had broken into the house. Investigators were then notified.
Investigators say there is every reason to believe Mrs. Dunstan is alive.
An employee at the Time Saver Food store at Boy Scout Road said police had been by Thursday to look at security video tapes.
Also on Friday afternoon, officials continued to scour the area of Kipling Drive and a wooded area behind the property using search dogs.
The Georgia State Patrol Aviation unit, based in Thomson, assisted the search with a helicopter. Using night-vision and infrared imaging technology, authorities searched parts of Richmond County, said Cpl. Herbert Craven, a pilot with the unit.
He said the unit will remain on standby today to assist authorities. Federal investigators also have been enlisted.
Ed Reinhold, the chief of the FBI's Augusta office, said federal charges may result from the investigation. He said several local leads have come about as a result of the investigation.
Billboards alerting the public to Mrs. Dunstan's disappearance will appear around town, said Brian Hatch, who works for a local advertising agency and is a family friend.
Mr. Hatch said Lamar Outdoor Advertising will donate billboards, and a printing company is making the billboard material as a donation.
"There's a lot of people trying to do what they can," he said.
Meanwhile, friends, family and others have circulated a poster created by the sheriff's office. The posters, which show Mrs. Dunstan in a wedding veil, lined utility poles along Walton Way and Highland Avenue.
Businesses along Boy Scout Road also had the posters in their windows. By evening, more businesses had posted them.
Dr. David Cundey, Mrs. Dunstan's father, said a family member has gone as far as Newberry, S.C., to distribute the fliers of the Clemson University graduate.
Dr. Cundey also pleaded for his daughter's safe return.
"The people who did this, if they would just contact us," he said. "Don't harm her."
Staff Writer Kate Lewis contributed to this article.
Reach Jeremy Craig and Greg Rickabaugh at (706) 724-0851 or newsroom@augustachronicle.com.
FINDING MRS. DUNSTAN
The family of Tamara Dunstan is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to finding her. Anyone with information about Mrs. Dunstan's whereabouts is asked to call the Richmond County Sheriff's Office at 821-1080.
--From the Saturday, April 17, 2004 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle
(It looks like they have professional police officeers at work here. Aren't they lucky this isn't the Keystone cops from Modesto?)
