More items found, but still no clues to Buffalo Grove teen's whereabouts
BARABOO, WIS. _ Searchers on Wednesday found the favorite yarmulke of missing Stevenson High School senior Lee S. Cutler, but no clues as to what happened to the 18-year-old Buffalo Grove student.
While volunteers in a helicopter with a heat-detecting infrared camera combed the Wisconsin cornfields and hills near here for any sign of Cutler, searchers on foot found the young man's yarmulke near the bank of the Baraboo River, a couple hundred yards from where officials found his backpack and a blanket Tuesday. Divers, armed with sonar, waded into the muddy river, but could provide no answers to the mystery.
"The water is high, and it's moving right now," said Capt. Kevin Fults of the Sauk County Sheriff's Department, which is handling the missing person's case.
Cutler was reported missing Saturday. Friday night, authorities say, he attended a birthday dinner for a friend, then gathered with a small group of teens at another friend's house, where he spent the night. He dropped a buddy off at home about 9:50 a.m. Saturday, but then failed to show up for his job in Hawthorn Center Mall in Vernon Hills.
His locked car was discovered about 3:30 a.m. Monday in Wisconsin, parked in a wayside area near a historical marker off Highway 33, a few hundred yards from the river.
Police have no evidence of foul play, Fults said. Worried family members who have gathered at the search site said Cutler, a student who got A's and B's in school, had pressure and stress in his life but gave no indications that he headed to Wisconsin to escape from them.
He had been to this area just south of the Wisconsin Dells several times, but no one knows of a special connection to the area, said Dan de Grazia, a family friend who is handling media requests for the weary family.
Hundreds of friends and classmates who have responded to a "Let's Find Lee" appeal on facebook.com have told stories about how Cutler made them laugh, but haven't been able to provide solid clues. Cutler talked last week of going to a concert tonight, and acted normal before he disappeared, de Grazia said.. De Grazia meets with them every night either in person or on the Internet.
As days pass and nighttime temperatures drop, so do hopes of a happy ending in this mystery. But searchers and the family aren't giving up.
"Maybe he really did decide to get away for a weekend, and he really didn't plan it well," de Grazia said. "We just have to look in the right spot."