McCLEARY, Wash. -- The disappearance of a 10-year-old girl from Grays Harbor County is looking more like a kidnapping than a runaway case.
A national expert helping in the search for 10-year-old Lindsey Baum says someone Lindsey knew might be responsible for her disappearance. Baum vanished while walking home from a friend’s house Friday around 9 p.m.
"Based on the information I have, it’s someone she possibly knows or is in the area, not outside the area," said Henry Schmidt, with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Schmidt, a retired sheriff from Wyoming, arrived in McCleary to assist with the search Sunday.
While police maintain Lindsey may have run away, for the first time officers are saying it's more likely she was kidnapped.
Schmidt said the majority of abducted children are taken by people they know.
Video
Air, land search under way for McCleary girl
Girl missing since Friday
Raw SkyKING video of search area
He said statistically, most abducted children are murdered within 24 hours. But, he said, that doesn’t make searchers give up hope.
“I’ve seen positive results," Schmidt said. "There’s proven cases out there of kids being found a couple of years later."
Police say more than ever they need the public's help. They say odds are someone unknowingly knows the person who's responsible and has noticed a recent change in behavior.
"A change in appearance, wanting to get rid of the family car for no explainable reason, perhaps deciding without discussion to suddenly leave the area for a period of time," Undersheriff Rick Scott said.
Courtesy Melissa Baum
A search is under way in the town of McCleary for 10-year-old Lindsey Baum.
Up until today, most of the searches occurred in the neighborhood where Lindsey was last seen, walking home from a friend's house. That's because most abducted children are found within a quarter mile of where they vanished. But experts worry time is working against them.
Lindsey's mom said she voluntarily took a polygraph test to assure police and people in town that she had nothing to do with her daughter's disappearance.
"I want everyone to know she's missing and I have no idea where she is," Lindsey said.
Investigators say both Lindsey's mom and the father of the friend at the home where Lindsey had just left have both voluntarily taken - and passed - polygraph tests, and they are not considered suspects.
Lindsey is 4-foot-9, 80 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes, last seen wearing a light blue hooded pullover shirt and blue jeans.