MAMAKATING – A group of approximately seventy firefighters, police, and EMS technicians converged on Mamakating Town Hall in the pre-dawn hours this past Saturday, to continue the search for Laura Garza, the Brooklyn woman who has been missing since early December. Garza, a native of McAllen, Texas, who had moved to Brooklyn this past summer, was last seen at a Manhattan nightclub in the company of convicted sex offender and Wallkill resident Michael Mele.

There had been rumors over the past several weekends that the search was set to continue; however, conditions on the ground had made it difficult, if not impossible, for the search to yield results, according to Brain Meier, a senior investigator with the New York State Police.

"The weather really hasn't cooperated with us over the last month," Meier said, referring to the fact that, until recently, snow has covered much of the search area, making it difficult if not impossible to spot a small piece of evidence.

Meier said that currently the investigation is conducting a systematic search of the areas Mele was believed to have traveled. The fact that Mele had a girlfriend in the Middletown area has led police to believe that Garza's remains could be in Mamakating, and that there is a strong likelihood that Mele had traveled up Route 17. In mid-December, police found a piece of carpet along Route 17 that matched the carpet in Mele's condo.

But this weekend's search yielded nothing in the way of results, prompting Bill Lothrop, who is the head of Battalion 5 of the Sullivan County Bureau of Fire, to announce that he was pulling his crews off the search until such time that the police come up with some new leads.

"[We've] exhausted the area that we searched," Lothrop was quoted as saying.

This is now the third time that the Wurtsboro-area firefighters have been involved in the search, which this past weekend concentrated on areas along South Road east of the Basha Kill, as well as areas along Ferguson Road, both of which are very sparely populated.

The search team was well prepared for any eventuality. All told there were volunteers from at least five different fire stations involved in the search, including Westbrookville, Goshen, Youngsville, Hurleyville, and Roscoe. Also on hand were members of the Sullivan County Department of Homeland Security, as well as members of the Sullivan County Sherriff's Office. Members of the Wurtsboro Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary set up a kitchen in Mamakating Town Hall, which they used to keep the volunteers primed with coffee and hot food.

County officials also brought with them a mobile command center which might have been used to help with communications and media inquiries if the search had turned up anything new. This truck — which is equipped with a battery of communications gear, a small kitchen, a restroom, and a conference table — is designed to provide officials with a stable platform from which to coordinate this type of search.

"[The truck] has resources to last three days," said Lieutenant Paul Pratti of the Sullivan County Sherriff's Office.

But all the extra effort turned out to be in vain. Now it will be up to investigators to uncover new leads in a case that appears to be going cold.

"There's always a probability factor in these kinds of [searches]," Investigator Meier said, referring to the fact that searchers could have overlooked something in the areas already searched. "You never have 100 percent."

Meier said that it's possible the team of investigators will have to backtrack and review the areas already searched.

"A small piece of evidence could have been missed," Meier said.

Michael Mele remains in jail on a probation violation stemming from his previous conviction. While he has yet to be charged in Garza's disappearance, he is considered a person of interest in the case.

COMMENTS about this article (4)