Mississippi Coastal Dwellers Asked to Look for Body of Missing Child

By Karen Nelson, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.

Jan. 18–JACKSON COUNTY — Sheriff Mike Byrd on Thursday asked Jackson County residents living along the Mississippi Sound to be alert for the possibility of finding the body of the last of the four children, all under the age of 4, believed to be thrown from the Dauphin Island Bridge in Alabama last week.

Byrd spent much of the day in a helicopter searching with his flotilla crews in boats and on land searching the shoreline from the Chevron Pascagoula Refinery in east Jackson County toward Dauphin Island.

But he alerted residents along beaches in Pascagoula, Gautier and Ocean Springs to be on the lookout for the small body of the last child, a girl.

“It’s very possible it could drift that far,” Byrd said. “Since the storm [Wednesday] we have no idea where this child may be. She could have been washed out into the Gulf, the weather was so violent.”

Searchers found the first of the four children Saturday; another was recovered Sunday and a third Tuesday, just two miles east of the refinery.

Each body was closer to the Mississippi Coast.

Mobile police are holding the father of the children, Lam Luong, on four counts of capital murder. He told police he threw the children from the 80-foot-high bridge after an argument with their mother Jan. 7, but later recanted.

TIPS ON THE CASE:

Anyone who finds anything that might be of interest in the case is asked to call the Jackson County Sheriff at 228-769-3063.

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Copyright (c) 2008, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.

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