Missing-girls case called abduction

Associated Press

EVANSDALE, Iowa

Investigators reclassified the disappearance of two missing Iowa cousins as an abduction case Friday after an FBI dive team failed to find their bodies in a lake near where they were last seen a week ago.

Lyric Cook-Morrissey, 10, and Elizabeth Collins, 8, vanished after riding bikes near Meyers Lake in Evansdale, a small town in northeast Iowa that has been devastated by their disappearance. Their bikes later were found on a path near the lake.

Investigators are confident the girls did not drown or die in the lake, and they do not believe the girls got lost because they would have been found by now, Black Hawk County Chief Deputy Rick Abben told reporters during an afternoon news briefing.

“Since we can’t find them, and they are not in the lake, we’re calling it an abduction,” said Abben, who announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. “Now that it’s an abduction, everyone is a suspect until we find these people, these two young girls.”

Abben spoke after an FBI dive team that focuses on underwater searches spent hours Friday on a boat equipped with sonar equipment, searching the bottom of the 26-acre lake. FBI spokeswoman Sandy Breault said divers were confident the girls were not there based on the surveillance, and they did not need to conduct any dives. The lake had been partially drained, and the sandy and muddy bottom could be seen in some spots.

The shift in the case also came after authorities took steps to keep a closer watch on Lyric’s father, a man with a lengthy criminal history who has stopped cooperating with police.

A judge on Thursday granted a prosecution request to place Daniel Morrissey, 36, in a pretrial supervision program of the Iowa Department of Corrections while he faces September trials in two separate drug cases that could land him in prison for decades. The change means Morrissey, who has been free on bond, will be supervised by parole officers who will make sure he shows up in court and does not violate the terms of his release.

Abben said authorities sought the order “so that we have a little bit closer” monitoring of Morrissey. But he also said Morrissey was not considered a suspect, and investigators were scrutinizing others in the family with criminal histories.