10:00am UPDATE: A crew returned to a creek today to search for  missing Middlebury College student Nicholas Garza of Albuquerque after photographs showed an "item of interest" in the river, The Associated Press reported this morning.

But a report that photographic evidence of Garza's body being found in Otter Creek was premature, Middlebury police Officer Vegar Boe, who is heading the investigation, told the AP.

Middlebury Police Chief Thomas Hanley on Wednesday downplayed two recently reported "leads" in the three-month-old search for missing Albuquerque student Nicholas Garza, the Rutland (Vt.) Herald said.

"There's been a lot of misinformation in the media and a lot of conjecture," Hanley told the Herald. "People are saying things they shouldn't be saying."

Hanley rejected recent reports that Garza's disappearance from his Middlebury College dorm on Feb. 5 was linked to an alleged group of serial killers said to be responsible for up to 40 killings of college-age males over the past decade, the Herald reported.

"From what I've seen of the media portrayals of the smiley face stuff, this didn't look anything like it," Hanley told the paper.

The police chief also cast cold water on reports that aerial surveillance photos taken by a Maine search team last month showed Garza's body or at least his clothing in a river running near the campus, the Herald said.

"All it was was an object with a blue tint. When you consider that the Otter Creek drains 685 square miles of Vermont land ... this could be anything. It could be a person, it could be a piece of lawn furniture," Hanley said.

"You can't see the image well enough to identify that those are jeans and those are sneakers, but there's a high probability they are," Hanley told the Herald. "I can't go so far as to say it's a body. I can say it's something that we're really, really interested in."

9:55am 5/7/08 -- 'Smiley Face' Link to Garza Disappearance?: Graffiti found in Middlebury resembles drawings left by alleged gang of serial killers.

Searchers have found "smiley-face" graffiti near the Middlebury College campus, where 19-year-old Albuquerque student Nicholas Garza disappeared on Feb. 5, that resembles graffiti found near the locations where some young men have gone missing over the past decade, FOX News is reporting.

Late last month, Fox News reported on claims by a team of retired New York City police detectives that as many as 40 young men have been murdered over the past decade by serial killers known as the "Smiley Face Gang," who left painted "smiley face" graffiti near their victims.

A task force of detectives looked into the disappearances of two men six years apart investigated 89 separate cases and said it had connected 40 of them through a variety of evidence, including matching sets of graffiti, according to the Minneapolis/St. Paul television station KSTP, which broke the story.

The task force concluded that a national crime network has killed at least 40 men -- mostly white college students in their 20s, often with high grades and impressive athletic records -- in about 10 different states, according to Fox News and KSTP.

Volunteer searchers looking for Garza have come forward with photos taken a week and a half ago of a "smiley face" painted on a utility shed door a short distance from downtown Middlebury, Vt., and not far from a riverbank where searchers were looking for the missing student, Fox reported.

When the volunteers saw television reports of the so-called "Smiley Face Gang" they noticed a striking similarity between the drawings they had photographed and graffiti found near some of the spots where young male college have been discovered, typically in rivers, Fox reported.

Middlebury police told Fox 44 that the graffiti is more than two years old and are not following up on leads related to the alleged "Smiley Face Gang."

Garza's mother, Natalie Garza of Albuquerque, who has been in Middlebury since shortly after her son's disappearance apparently hasn't ruled out a possible connection.

"Nick didn't walk off this campus and he was in his right frame of mind, and I believe someone knows what happened to my son that night," Natalie Garza told the station.

Meanwhile, Burlington, Vt., television station WCAX reported that Middlebury police hope to remove a large pile of logs and debris at the foot of a waterfall on Otter Creek next week, after a Maine search team reported seeing what looked like a body, or at least clothing resembling that worn by Garza when he disappeared, upstream of the falls.

Police must first get permission of property owners along the stretch of river below the falls before conducting the search, WCAX reported. 

6:55am 5/5/08 -- New Clue Found in Garza Search: Maine search team believes 2-week-old photos showed missing ABQ student's clothing.

Aerial photos taken April 17 by a Maine search team may show the blue jeans and white tennis shoes worn by 19-year-old Albuquerque student Nicholas Garza on the night he disappeared from the Middlebury College campus on Feb. 5, a Vermont television station reported over the weekend.

"We're pretty confident that it's something that would be jeans and shoes," Richard Bowie, director of the Down East Emergency Medical Institute, told the Burlington, Vt., television station KCAX. "The colors are correct and there shouldn't be anything else in the area that resembles that."

The search team took photos of a 7-mile stretch of Otter Creek, and two of the photos taken a few hours apart on April 17 showed the objects in the creek right behind Middlebury High School, the station reported.

A photo lab in Ohio quickly notified the Middlebury Police Department, which sent officers out immediately to search the area, but it was too dark that night, KCAX reported.

The following day, a thorough search failed to turn up anything, and Middlebury police now believe that whatever was seen in the photos could have been swept over a waterfall in the middle of town and could be wedged under piles of debris, according to KCAX.

Police plan to revisit the site that had been already searched by a technical water team from Saranac, N.Y., in early April, but say they'll have to wait for water to recede in what is being described as a dangerous stretch of the creek, KCAX reported.

"From what I understand the dams are being checked, but the fact that my son's body may be laying in the water, it's taking everything from me not just getting in the water by myself to look for Nicholas," the Albuquerque Academy graduate's mother Natalie Garza told the station.

9:40am 4/29/08 -- Latest Garza Search Yields No Clues: N.H. woman whose sister vanished 37 years ago reaches out to missing student's mother.

The nearly 150 volunteers who combed fields, woods and river banks near the Middlebury College campus in Vermont last Saturday failed to turn up any new leads in the Feb. 5 disappearance of 19-year-old Nicholas Garza of Albuquerque, according to The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, a New Hampshire woman, whose sister disappeared from the same campus 37 years ago, is reaching out to Garza's mother Natalie, who organized last Saturday's search and has been living at the campus since days after her son disappeared, according to the Union Leader of Manchester, N.H.

Anne Schulze of Londonderry, N.H., whose sister Lynne Schulze has been missing since Dec. 10, 1971, just before Middlebury College's winter break, is poring over notes she has kept on her sister's disappearance for 37 years and is reaching out to Natalie Garza, the Union Leader reported.

"It's devastating," Schulze told the paper. "My heart went out immediately. I think my whole family and all my sister's friends felt the same way. You just completely empathize with how extremely difficult that situation is and how incredibly important it is that information about Nick be spread far and wide very, very quickly in case he was abducted."

Natalie Garza told the Union Leader that Schulze has been a great source of comfort and information for her.

"She helped me see how a family has dealt with a missing person for 37 years; I can't even fathom that," Garza told the paper. "I know how it's been for the last two months trying to find my son."

Schulze's disappearance has been handled by six different detectives over the years and is the Middlebury Police Department's longest-running missing persons case, Police Chief Thomas Hanley told the Union Leader.

Police say there is no evidence connecting the two disappearances, but both the Schulze and Garza families have called for changes in the way colleges notify relatives of issues having to do with students, the Union Leader said.

"After my sister went missing, my mom got a call five days later from Middlebury College," Anne Schulze told the paper. "She felt certain something had happened to Lynn, some foul play; call it mother's instinct."

Campus officials at first thought Nick Garza was on a trip with friends to a cabin in New Hampshire, but it wasn't until after the friends returned without him that they alerted his mother on Sunday, Feb. 10, the Union Leader said.

Those officials told Natalie Garza that they did not consider her son missing until he failed to show up for his 9 a.m. class on Monday, Feb. 11, the paper said. 

9:05am 4/25/08 -- No Lack of Volunteers for Garza Search: Middlebury police also mount new search north of campus where student disappeared.

"I am a desperate mother," Natalie Garza, the mother of Albuquerque student Nicholas Garza who disappeared from Middlebury College on Feb. 5, told the Rutland (Vt.) Herald on Thursday. "Nothing is happening as fast as I need it to happen."

Garza issued a call this week for volunteers to join a new ground search on Saturday, any many people from the Vermont community as well as family and friends had responded almost as soon as the word went out, the Herald reported.

"We had 100 before the press release went out," Garza told the Herald. "That was just from posting it on Nick's Web site."

Meanwhile, Middlebury police were launching a new search of their own north of the campus, the Herald reported.

"This is one of the last targeted search areas we haven't gotten to," Police Chief Thomas Hanley told the paper.

Searches to date have involved eight major organizations, two helicopters, one fixed-wing aircraft, 13 dogs, digital imaging and analysis, thermal imaging and ground-penetrating radar, Hanley told the Herald.

"Our confidence is pretty high he's not in the area we searched," Hanley said.

Natalie Garza told the Herald she has been getting "unofficial guidance" from Vermont state police on the most productive search areas, adding "The campus is pretty much cleared ... He's not on campus."

Coordinating Saturday's volunteer search is Gary Peterson, an investigator with the Minnesota Regional Medical Examiner's Office who previously consulted on the case with Texas EquuSearch, a private search-and-rescue organization, the Herald reported.

The police chief expressed concern that volunteer searchers could contaminate a potential crime scene if Garza's disappearance turns out to be the result of foul play, the paper said.

But Hanley said he has discussed his concerns with Peterson, who is familiar with crime scene procedures, the Herald reported. 

10:20am 4/24/08 -- New Search Saturday for Missing ABQ Student: Volunteers to comb area around Middlebury College, where Nick Garza disappeared Feb. 5.

A new ground search of the Middlebury (Vt.) College area will be launched Saturday morning for missing Albuquerque student Nicholas Garza, who was last seen on the college campus on Feb. 5, according to a family news release.

The search will be directed by veteran missing persons consultant Gary Peterson, with approval from the Middlebury Police Department, the release said.

Peterson and the Garza family have asked for qualified volunteers from throughout the region to take part in the search of areas near the college campus.

To qualify, volunteers must be at least 18 years old, be able to hike distances over uneven terrain and have no health concerns, according to the release.

Volunteers also are urged to prepare for the weather (sun screen, hat, bug spray etc.), wear sturdy boots, bring a GPS device or compass if possible and not bring any household pets or weapons of any kind, the release said.

Food, beverages and transportation will be provided to registered searchers, the release said.

Here's what we have reported earlier on the Albuquerque Academy graduate's baffling disappearance.

And for the latest information, you can go to www.nicholasgarza.org. 

Your Name:

Your Email Address:

Rate this article:
Poor Great

Comment:

BOLD

"QUOTE"

UNDERLINE