At the outset, the VSP, using the motel as Samantha Moore’s last known position, deployed a hastily assembled search team to quickly look in areas where she had the highest probability of being located—if she had wandered off, gotten lost, become disoriented, or been injured.

Then the VSP search leader applied methodology—using her height, weight, and gait, and then factoring in terrain, weather, and time—to estimate how far she could reasonably travel. Then he established a search circle, with the point of where she was last seen at the center.

Wisert’s team was dispatched to the westernmost edge of the search area with other search groups.

She was glad to be here. Helping people had become part of Wisert’s DNA, ever since she was nine and her house had caught fire. She and her family had been rescued uninjured by firefighters, and their house had been saved. Now, Wisert prayed that Moore had not been abducted, which was a strong police theory. If she had been abducted, or worse, they were looking at recovering a body.

Wisert’s hope was that Moore had run off.

It happens.

Wisert had been with the search-and-rescue team for eight years, and knew that often the outcome of a search was tragic. But each new case gave her hope for a win, no matter what the odds. Working through the dense forest and bramble of her sector, she considered last night’s rain and wind, coupled with the fact Moore was last seen wearing jeans and a T-shirt. In no way had this young woman from New York been prepared.

It didn’t look good.

Wisert’s team had been searching since first light. The VSP team leader had not assigned them to a full-blown grid pattern. Their spacing was wider than usual, with maybe 30 yards between them. But her team was experienced.

Now, it was late in the afternoon. They’d been moving well through the forest, along rolling meadows and creeks, often seeing white-tailed deer. Wisert had come over a rise to a thicket by a slope. Directly ahead, an arrangement of branches obscured what appeared to be a small, makeshift shelter.

Deep in the tangle was a patch of color.

White.

As she approached, she realized the white patch was a T-shirt. Wisert then saw jeans and a body, facedown, flat on its stomach.

“Oh my God!”

Pieces of the T-shirt had been ripped, torn away. The body partially eaten.

She reached for her radio.

CHAPTER 10

Vermont

Body Found In Search For Missing Queens Woman

A New York tabloid was the first to break the story.

In the wake of Samantha Moore’s disappearance, the discovery of human remains in the Cold Hollow Mountains of Vermont drew national attention. The questions for state investigators came fast, and were relentless.

Was this Moore? How was she killed? Is there a suspect?