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Grandmother Begins New Jahi Search

Boy Has Been Missing Since April 25

POSTED: 12:21 pm PDT May 8, 2002
UPDATED: 6:09 pm PDT May 8, 2002

The family of a 2-year-old boy missing for nearly two weeks set up a new search headquarters and vowed to expand the effort to find the missing toddler.

Jahi Turner's grandmother, Penny Thompson, spoke with reporters late Tuesday at the new search headquarters at the Jackie Robinson YMCA in the Mountain View neighborhood.

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Thompson said the family had no complaints with the search efforts that operated out of a Golden Hill Moose Lodge since April 28. But organizers there announced on Monday that, after scouring a nearly 20-square-mile area and passing out some 30,000 fliers, they had done all they could, at least for the time being.

Thompson, who arrived in San Diego last week from her home in Maryland, said that the "Friends of Jahi Recovery Centre," is aimed at expanding the search for her grandson.

"The more area we can search, the better the search will be," Thompson said, adding that the main goal is "finding my grandson."

Earlier this week, police wrapped up a week's worth of nonstop digging at the Miramar landfill for clues into Jahi's disappearance.

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The exhaustive operation turned up "several items that have caught (detectives') interest" from a 5,000-ton mountain of refuse that originated in the area where the boy's family lives, San Diego police information officer Dave Cohen said Tuesday.

"We won't discuss specifically what they are, but we will be evaluating them," he added.

Officials also have refused to disclose what led to the search involving scores of detectives and hundreds of military volunteers at the central city dump.

The mystery of Jahi's disappearance dates to the afternoon of April 25, when the boy's stepfather, Tieray Jones, 23, reported Jahi missing from a neighborhood playground.

Police said Jones left the child in the Balboa Park recreation area with a woman and two other children while he walked a few hundred yards to buy a vending-machine soda.

When he returned, his stepson was gone, along with the others, the man reported.

Jahi's disappearance, which investigators soon described as an abduction, prompted an all-out law enforcement probe and volunteer searches involving thousands of citizens.

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Police have declined to address news reports that Jahi apparently was not where his stepfather said he was the day he went missing, or that Jones failed a lie detector test.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that police did not find the boy's fingerprints on recreation equipment in the playground off 28th and Beech streets, where Jones said they had been that Thursday.

The child's mother, Tameka Jones, 18, is a sailor who was at sea when her son disappeared. Her Navy commanders allowed her to immediately return to shore to help in the search.

Jahi is 2 1/2 feet tall, light-skinned African American who weighs about 30 pounds.

At the time of his disappearance, he was wearing a blue "Winnie the Pooh" long-sleeve T- shirt, blue nylon pants with an orange drawstring and gray Michael Jordan tennis shoes, according to his stepfather.

Police urged anyone with information concerning Jahi's whereabouts to call the SDPD's Central Division "juvenile hotline" at (619) 744-9521, or San Diego County Crime Stoppers' anonymous tip service at (619) 235-8477.


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