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Police Think Missing Boys Are Still in City: Neighbors Pray for Safe Return, Plead for Information and Continued Support

Posted on: Sunday, 26 March 2006, 03:00 CST

By Katharine Goodloe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mar. 26--Milwaukee police think two boys missing for a week still are within the city, a department spokeswoman said Saturday, as a throng of family, neighbors and strangers prayed for God to return the children and combed a city park looking for them.

Spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said officials have pored through hundreds of tips on the disappearance of Purvis Virginia Parker, 11, and Quadrevion Henning, 12. Police have separated irrelevant information and are "very focused" in their investigation, she said.

Schwartz reiterated the department's belief that people in the area have information on the boys' disappearance but have not come forward. She said police are not targeting specific individuals who they think are withholding information but said anyone with information should call a national tip line.

Schwartz did not say why officials think the boys are in Milwaukee but said officers would continue the search as long as the department feels it is accomplishing something. Agents from the state Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation also joined the search, she said.

At a McDonald's on the city's northwest side, about 100 people gathered Saturday morning to sing and pray for the boys' safe return. Leaders of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which organized the event, pleaded for residents to comb their neighborhoods and passed out forms for them to write down any information.

Shondra Cook, a neighbor whose children played with the missing boys, asked residents to continue their support once cameras left and the media spotlight faded.

"Those boys play with our children," she said. "These pictures, they could be your children. This is personal for me. When the cameras leave, you need to stay."

As the group marched to nearMcGovern Park, volunteers plastered parked cars with fliers with the boys' pictures, stopping some motorists and pausing at the few houses without fliers in their windows.

Most among those searching said they came because of their own children. Linda Groves said her 12-year-old, Lavonte, disappeared for seven hours last summer, sending her into a panic. She went from house to house and took his picture to the Police Department before finding him at a friend's house.

"I went through that," Groves said. "I'm glad he now understands why we have those rules, why you can't do what you want and what you see the 15- and 16-year-olds doing. You're still a baby," she told her son, who attends the same school as Purvis and joined in the search.

It was a common scenario among volunteers.

Verna Thornton, 56, said her granddaughter ran away twice before family members found her at a friend's home. The boys' disappearance brought back the same uncertainty her family felt, she said.

"I love kids, and these kids have been missing so long that it makes me think," she said. "But I don't want to think. I'm just hoping. I'm on bended knee, praying they come back home."

Angie Avery, who used to live two doors down from the Henning family, moved from the neighborhood in January. Though she'd lived there seven years, she hadn't returned in more than a month -- until the boys disappeared.

"I hate to come back in these circumstances," she said. "But nothing could keep me away or from finding these boys."

The reward fund for information on the boys' disappearance climbed to $35,000, Schwartz said. Police have asked anyone with information to call a national tip line at (877) 628-3804.

More information can be found at www.henningparker.com .

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Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

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Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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