Lindsey Baum is Missing: Washington 10-Year-Old Still Not Found

Police Believe Lindsey Baum was Taken by Someone She Knew

Authorities are still searching for missing 10-year-old child, Lindsey Baum, who went missing just after 9:00 p.m. on June 26 in McCleary, Washington. Lindsey Baum had just left the house of a friend for her 10-minute walk home, a trip she had made many times before without a problem, in plenty of time to beat her 10 o'clock curfew and the coming darkness. But she never made it home.

McCleary Police and other authorities now believe that Lindsey Baum was taken or went off with someone she knew. A timeline has been developed and a witness saw the little girl walking about halfway to her destination at around 9:15. Surveillance footage taken from a gas station she would have passed later on the way home does not show her at all. That close to her home, officials believe that she went with someone she knew willingly, otherwise sounds and signs of a struggle would have alerted people in the densely housed area.

Lindsey's mother, Melissa, has passed a polygraph test, as has Scott Williams, the father of the child where Lindsey Baum was visiting and one of the last people to see her.

KOMO News reports that authorities intensified their search efforts, mounting ground, waterway, and aerial searches, leading into the 4th of July weekend, then cutting back on Thursday and attempting another approach. Handing out fliers of the missing girl to travelers and people passing through town, officials hope to get Lindsey Baum's image in the public's mind and produce a lead. The FBI requested that Clear Channel Communications use their new digital billboards in the Kent Valley to flash Lindsey Baum's picture and an alert. A nearby ORV park is reminding visitors to Washington's Capitol Forest, an 80,000 acre park and a popular holiday retreat, to keep a lookout for the missing girl.

The FBI and local law enforcement detectives worked over the holidays, hoping to get a lead on the missing girl. They were out in force in the little Washington town around the time the child disappeared, hoping that whoever may have taken her was a person of habit.