The FBI unplugged its toll-free telephone line Friday for tips about a missing 15-year-old Buxton girl.
However, a national organization that helps find missing children has replaced it with another toll-free hotline devoted to collecting information on the disappearance of Coreen Wiese.
Gail Marcinkiewicz of the FBI office in Boston said the FBI line was discontinued Friday after a week because of a diminishing number of tips. “We got some leads,” Marcinkiewicz said.
Wiese was last seen Nov. 8 at the Route 25 bridge over the Saco River at the Limington rapids at about 11 a.m. Investigators found some of the girl’s personal items including a cell phone near the bridge, along with messages attributed to her scrawled on bridge beams.
Buxton Officer Mike Grovo is urging anyone with information to contact Buxton police at 929-6612 or 929-5151. Grovo said Buxton police have received tips but are seeking more. “Anything great or small,” Grovo said.
Buxton police recently distributed posters produced by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children based in Alexandria, Va., with Wiese’s description and photos. Her photos and description are also posted on the center’s Web site
The Virginia organization, which assists police departments in investigations, identified Wiese as lost, injured or missing. It’s providing its toll-free, 24-hour hotline for information about Wiese. Those with information can call 1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST).
Grovo said police are praying they’ll locate the missing girl. “I’m working my heart out on it,” Grovo said. “It’s a tough case.”
Although the FBI has disbanded a command post at Buxton town hall, FBI agents in Portland are working on the case along with Buxton police and the Maine Warden Service.
The warden service has searched the river area on the ground along with an aircraft and airboat since the girl disappeared. “We’re still searching,” Mark Latti, a spokesman for the Warden Service, said this week.
A warden is looking along the riverbanks and the bridge area daily. The warden service aircraft will search again Friday. Latti said Monday the pilot hasn’t seen anything but said the river, swelled by recent rains is lower and cleaner.
The FBI hasn’t revealed whether the missing girl had a passport.
She is the daughter of Wesley J. Wiese and Cynthia E. Wiese of 83 Henry Hill Road in Buxton. The family previously lived on Pequawket Trail in Steep Falls.
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