BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — Law enforcement officers in Southern California searched in rugged mountain terrain for a second day on Sunday for a missing F.B.I. agent who was said to be despondent and possibly suicidal.

About 100 F.B.I. agents, 40 Sheriff’s Department rescuers and a dozen local police officers participated in the search for the missing agent, Stephen Ivens.

Special Agent Steve Gomez of the F.B.I. said dogs had tracked Agent Ivens’s scent toward the Verdugo Mountains, east of Burbank, but searchers have fanned out across Los Angeles County.

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Agent Ivens, 35, who works in the F.B.I.’s Los Angeles bureau, was last seen by family members on Thursday evening, the authorities said. He left his Burbank home the next morning on foot and had not been seen since, F.B.I. officials said at a news conference. His wife reported him missing Friday at 7:30 a.m.

Agent Ivens was distraught, and the authorities fear he may have harmed himself, KABC-TV reported, but officials did not elaborate.

A search of his home did not turn up his handgun, and police believe he may have taken it with him.

He is married with a 1-year-old child and has been working for the F.B.I. for the last three years in the national security area, an F.B.I. spokeswoman said. Before that, he worked as a Los Angeles police officer for eight years.

Agent Gomez told reporters that foul play was not suspected and that Agent Ivens was not believed to pose a threat to others.

Daniel Hiser, 20, Milledgeville, reported missing since Wednesday from Morehad State University in Kentucky, contacted his parents Sunday morning from somewhere in New Mexico.

Morehead State University Police were contacted Sunday morning by a couple who reportedly picked Daniel up in southern Indiana and transported him to Little Rock, Arkansas on Thursday.

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The couple saw media coverage and contacted authorities early Sunday morning. Authorities in Morehead, Ky., had conducted a ground and air search for Hiser’ s vehicle after it was believed to have been involved in an accident near Elliottville, Ky., sometime overnight Wednesday.

While attempting refocus of the investigation, Hiser’s parents were called by Daniel shortly before 11 a/,/ pm Sunday morning.

Daniel gave no explanation of circumstances surrounding his disappearance over the last four days but is well and is in further communication with his family. The Hiser family extends their appreciation to law enforcement, family and friends in their attempts to locate Daniel.

Darryl Jones doesn’t have plans to celebrate Mother’s Day. At a time when households are honoring the maternal bonds of the family unit, Jones, the boys basketball coach of city-power Satellite Academy in the Bronx, which has won three of the past five city championships in the PSAL’s Alternative League, has a more pressing matter to deal with.

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Jones’ daughter is missing, and hasn’t been seen by her family or heard from since April 27. Stevie Bates, a 19-year-old former cheerleader at the Bronx High School of Science, with an infectious smile and shoulder-length blond dreadlocks, was traveling cross-country with a group of friends she met through the Occupy Wall Street movement when she disappeared. Bates was last observed boarding a bus in Pittsburgh destined for New York, where she was supposed to arrive on April 28.

Vivian Bates, who is married to Darryl, last spoke with her daughter on the phone on April 27. According to Vivian, Stevie was at a Greyhound bus station in Pittsburgh during a layover. The time was 7:52 p.m. Stevie hasn’t been heard from since.

“That was her last layover,” Vivian told the Daily News. “I asked her if she wanted me to pick her up at the bus station (back in Manhattan) and she said ‘no.’ She was going to Brooklyn to meet up with some friends. But she never got there. She was coming home later that day.”

That was the last time Vivian Bates and Jones heard from their daughter, who is a 5-6, African-American female, weighs 120 pounds and is distinguished by her dreadlocks and a nose and belly piercing.
Sunday is Mother’s Day and Darryl says the family doesn’t have any plans to commemorate the occasion, except to keep looking for clues to find their daughter.

“It’s just a very tough situation right now,” said Jones, who coaches in the PSAL’s alternative league, or “second-chance league” for at-risk kids who have struggled at mainstream high schools around the city. Jones also coaches the Long Island Lightning AAU basketball team. “We’re just trying to get through this right now.”

The family filed a missing person’s report with the City of Yonkers Police Department on May 9, according to Eugene Marron, a police dispatcher for the Yonkers Communications Department. Jones and Bates, who live in Yonkers, have received kernels of information in the days since Stevie disappeared. Police in Pittsburgh contacted Vivian on Friday with information that Stevie was captured on video boarding a bus in that city on April 27 during a layover, Vivian said, apparently at about the same Vivian last spoke to her daughter.

“It’s hard,” said Stevie’s older sister, Sherina Bates, who has posted missing person flyers around her Crown Heights neighborhood and spread the word of her disappearance through social media. “It’s not going to be a happy Mother’s Day unless we find her.”

If a child is under 10 and is reported missing, then the police conduct an all-out search, according to Lt. Phillip Collins of the Yonkers police. But since Stevie is 19, the hunt for clues isn’t as frantic, with a “teletype” bulletin sent out to local and state authorities.

“If she’s 19, she’s an adult and there’s no indication that her life is in jeopardy or she has a mental incapacity, there’s not going to be an all-out search,” Collins said on Saturday. “People go missing on their own volition all the time. She’s 19, she’s an adult. She really doesn’t have to abide by her parents’ rules.”

Vivian described her daughter as a homebody, incredibly outgoing, and quick to make friends. She rejected the idea that Stevie may have run away because of a family grievance. ”We were good, good friends,” Vivian said. “She would never do that.”

Stevie was heavily involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, living in a tent in Zuccotti Park from September of last year until the camp was raided in November, Vivian said. She attended Hunter College last year but didn’t register for this semester and was applying to colleges for the fall. She was interested in studying architecture. “In fact she has a couple of applications at home that are waiting for her,” Vivian said
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The family purchased a new home in Yonkers on March 1 and was redoing the floors of the house in early April. Stevie was supposed to stay with friends in Brooklyn for a few days while the house was touched up. A week later, on April 19, Vivian said she got a call from Stevie from Virginia, saying she had gone on a road trip to Northern California with three friends she knew from Occupy Wall Street. Stevie lost her cell phone along the way so Vivian kept in contact through a friend’s phone her daughter was traveling with.

Around April 23, Stevie told her mother their car broke down in North Carolina and they would be taking a bus to Arkansas. On April 26, Stevie had resolved to come home and boarded a Greyhound bus from Hot Springs, Ark. that was scheduled to arrive in New York City on April 28 at 5:40 a.m., Vivian said.

Vivian said she has been in contact with the Pittsburgh Police Department, speaking with a Det. Colleen Brust. On Saturday, Brust, who works in the missing person’s bureau, could not be reached for comment, though a Det. Bryan Sellers, who deals with sexual assault cases, said the missing person’s report involving Stevie Bates is in the Pittsburgh police system.

On Wednesday, Vivian went to Zuccotti Park, armed with a picture of Stevie to see if anyone knew of her whereabouts.

“My daughter is missing 14 days now,”Vivian said on Friday. “And this is not unlike her to at least be somewhere where I can find her or where her friends know where she was. I don’t know what to think. I haven’t heard anything.”

For any information on the whereabouts of Stevie Bates, please contact Vivian Bates at 646-345-3410.

A man whose wife has been missing for three weeks has found a female body in the woods off the same street as his residence Saturday.

Capt. Troy Elwell of the Aiken County Sheriff’s Office said Wendell Baughman contacted law enforcement officials about 12:30 p.m., indicating he had found the body on Double Springs Road, a road behind Redcliffe Elementary School between Beech Island and Jackson.

The decomposed body has not been identified, Elwell said. An autopsy could be performed as soon as today to make the identification and determine the cause of death.

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Baughman told officials he had been working on a trailer and decided to go into the woods, where he found the body.

On April 23, Melody Baughman, 56, had been reported missing from the couple’s residence at 1082 Double Springs Road by her son, Kyle Posey of Lawton, Okla. He had attempted to reach her and then called law enforcement.

She had not taken her medication, money, credit cards or purse when she went missing, Elwell said at that time.

According to investigators, the couple had gotten into an argument while they were working on property near their home. Wendell said she left him there while he continued to work for several more hours. When he returned home, she wasn’t there, but he told investigators his .22 caliber gun was missing.

Wendell said at that time his wife had called him the afternoon she disappeared and told him she was a “grown woman and can leave anytime she wanted.” He told deputies he intended to wait 72 hours before he reported her missing.

Following the report of Melody’s disappearance, aerial and ground searches took place, but officials did not turn up any clues at that time.

Senior writer Rob Novit is the Aiken Standard’s education reporter and has been with the newspaper since September 2001. He is a native of Walterboro and majored in journalism at the University of Georgia.

WASHINGTON COUNTY, N.Y. — Crews have been unable to find a missing Greenwich teen who went missing early Saturday morning while camping with friends and family.

Police stopped their search for Jesse Cale, 18, Saturday night because of darkness but expect to resume Sunday. Police said Cale went missing around midnight Saturday morning while gathering firewood and they were notified about an hour later.

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Around 80 people from multiple agencies have helped with the search. Police say they have used aviation units, boats and divers along with the people on the ground. Crews have searched both sides of county route 113.

Officials said they will likely expand the search area.

Lt. John Solan of the New York State Forest Rangers said, “No new developments, based on today’s efforts.’ we probably will expand a little bit tomorrow. not exactly sure where yet. but we will probably branch out a little bit, maybe go back and look at a few areas again, we covered today, just to give them a second look tomorrow with some fresh people.”
Authorities expect to resume the search between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. Sunday.