Volunteers Continue Search for Missing Boy

Police, neighbors and Navy sailors searched Monday for 2-year-old Jahi Turner, as police reported finding the “mystery woman” who was said to have been nearby when the boy disappeared Thursday from a public park here.

Although police said that they would continue talking to the woman, she had provided no obvious boost to the search for the boy, the son of a Navy sailor.

“We have spoken with her and will be speaking with her again,” said police spokesman David Cohen. “She is not a suspect.”

Cohen declined to say how police located the woman or what she might have told them about the boy, who police believe was kidnapped.

Tieray Jones, Turner’s stepfather, told police that the boy vanished in the 15 minutes he left him at a Balboa Park annex while going for a soda. Jones reported that the only other adult in the area was a woman with short hair and a lean face.

Among the several dozen volunteer searchers were 15 sailors from the amphibious transport ship Rushmore, based in San Diego. Tameka Jones, the boy’s mother, is stationed aboard the Rushmore and was at sea on a training mission when her husband reported Jahi missing

The Navy brought her back to San Diego by helicopter to assist in the search.

Several dozen volunteers gathered at the local Moose Lodge for a day of searching the streets and brushy canyons near the family’s apartment in the South Park-Golden Hill neighborhood.

“You sleep better knowing that at least you tried to help, instead of just watching the news,” said Priscilla Resendez, who searched while pushing a stroller with her 2-year-old son.

Cohen said that the searches failed to “produce anything of significance.”

Many of the volunteers had also been part of the search for Danielle van Dam, who disappeared Feb. 2 from her home in the upscale Sabre Springs neighborhood of San Diego. Volunteers found her body Feb. 28.

“I love children and felt compelled to help any way I can,” said Ellie Elmore, a substitute teacher who worked in both searches. “I’m just an average citizen who wants to help.”