Florida authorities searching for a missing Woodstock teenager plan an intensive search Saturday near where her boyfriend was found dead.
Using helicopters to back up the ground search by detectives and volunteers, the Marion County Sheriff’s Department hopes to find clues to the disappearance of 16-year-old Wendy Von Huben.
The Woodstock High School freshman was last seen in the Chicago area on Feb. 23, when she ran away to Florida with her boyfriend, Jesse Lee Howell, 19, also of Woodstock.
Last week, police found Howell’s body along railroad tracks in a rural area near Ocala, Fla., about 80 miles northwest of Orlando. He had been fatally struck in the head.
Police said Friday that near the body they found what they believe was the murder weapon, though they declined to identify it.
Marion County Detective Sgt. Terry Bovaird said investigators plan an extensive search of the scene where Howell’s body was found in an attempt to find any evidence that might lead them to Von Huben or to her boyfriend’s killer.
“We don’t know what we are going to find,” said Bovaird. “Naturally, we hope we don’t find her body and that she is well.
“But one of the possibilities is that there could be a body out there,” he added. “After all, the last person she is seen with died from a very violent crime.”
Investigators plan to use a helicopter to search a 60-mile stretch of CSX Corp. railroad tracks that run the length of the county.
In addition, 15 volunteers on all-terrain vehicles will do a ground search of about 12 square miles around the murder scene, a remote area of pasture land. It will be the third search of the area, though by far the most extensive.
Marion County sheriff’s police also plan to travel Monday to Illinois to gather background information on Howell and Von Huben and to interview a teenage couple who drove to Florida with the two but later separated from them. The couple are not suspects, police said.
Investigators are operating on a few theories about what happened to Von Huben and Howell.
Officials have speculated that the couple ran into trouble after hopping a train. Police have enlisted the aid of inspectors at CSX Corp. for help in the investigation.
Police are also investigating whether the two encountered problems while hitchhiking in the area.
