Volunteers fanned out in the hills around Merritt College Saturday in a search for missing toddler Daphne Webb and after several hours, concluded after finding little except for a new place to search.
Oakland police Sgt. Mike Gantt told reporters at a morning news conference at a mobile command unit set up the college, located at 12500 Campus Drive, that there they began a two-pronged investigation in the search for 22-month-old Webb who has been missing on July 10.
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Gantt told reporters Saturday that both homicide and missing person investigators were looking into the case, and on Saturday, that included a 45-member search team from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.
At the same time, the search party was working with six cadaver dogs and K-9 units and other search technology in parks near the college, according to Alameda County sheriff’s search and rescue unit Chief Ron Seitz.
Observers later noted that, in a sense, two parallel investigations were being conducted: one for a missing girl, the other for a potential homicide victim.
The hope was one search will turn up nothing and the other will bring a little girl home.
“We are pretty confident we are going to find out what happened to this baby,” Gantt said to reporters Saturday morning.
Saturday’s search was the first to have members of Daphne’s family participate, and they were visibly overtaken with emotion.
“I got family members that’s a little overwhelmed by it,” said Kevin Davis, Daphne’s grandfather.
“Because it brings back [that] not only is she missing but you know something hard could have possibly happened to her.”
When the search ended around 3 p.m., little progress had been made other than police saying they had identified a new area of interest west of Merritt.
Searchers reportedly found a shovel and pick and it was first thought to be potential evidence.
Later, they turned out to belong to kids who were using the tools to groom bike trails. The kids later said that they had hid them after becoming concerned with the police presence in the area.
Davis said the search was hard for the family but cadaver dogs finding nothing Saturday helped keep up their hopes that Daphne would be found alive.
Previous searches for Daphne were held by the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline near Doolittle Drive and Swan Way, near the Oakland airport.
Police said Saturday’s search was based on new information police recently received.
Daphne’s father, 49-year-old John Anthony Webb, of Oakland, reported the baby missing shortly after 11 a.m. on July 10. He told police that she was taken by a stranger while she was in a parked car with his 87-year-old mother while he was at the Gazza Supermarket at 7838 International Blvd. to buy something.
Webb was arrested by Oakland police in the days after the baby was reported missing, but he was released from custody when charges were dropped.
He was still a person of interest Saturday but was not a suspect, police said.
Daphne was described by police as black with short, curly black hair and she has a deformity on her left ear. She is 2 feet tall and weighs 30 pounds.
She was last seen wearing orange two-piece pajamas with pink hearts.
Daphne lives with her father and grandmother in the 800 block of Greenridge Drive, off Keller Avenue, just south of Saturday’s search location, according to police.
Daphne’s mother lives elsewhere and was not considered a suspect, according to police.
A reward for information about Daphne’s disappearance has grown to $20,000, FBI officials announced Friday.
