Editor’s note: This story was first published in The Record on Feb. 8, 2003.
Relatives, friends and strangers moved by the disappearance of Laci Peterson gathered in the parking lot of a roadside restaurant in southern San Joaquin County early Saturday to search for the 27-year-old Modesto woman who vanished on Christmas Eve.
At 9 a.m., about 100 people had converged at the Orchard Restaurant on Highway 132 prepared to scour the fields, canals and reservoirs near Vernalis for any trace of Peterson. Some volunteers came on horseback and cross-country motorcycles, but most planned to look for Peterson on foot and by car.
The search had returned to where it began. The area around the intersection of highways 132 and 33 was one of the first locations search dogs were alerted to after Peterson was reported missing 47 days ago.
Harvey Kempel, Peterson’s cousin, said combing the back roads around Modesto had become a grim routine for Peterson’s friends and family.
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