Authorities in northeast Texas launched a day-long search Saturday of properties once connected to a woman who vanished nearly three decades ago.
Click here to listen to Cadaver Dogs Search Property Linked To Missing Woman.
The woman, Carey Mae Parker, disappeared in early 1991. She and her three children lived at different times in the Lake Tawakoni area in southern Hunt County.
That's where sheriff's deputies and trained volunteers focused efforts throughout the day's search, which included canine units trained to detect human remains, Sgt. Jeff Haines of the Hunt Co. Sheriff's Office said.
Haines said authorities were focusing on “areas of interest pertaining to the search for Carey Mae Parker,” based on his investigation in recent years.
“Everything has led back to Waco Bay,” he added.
The Waco Bay Estate is a subdivision south of Quinlan, TX, and it's where Carey and her siblings lived after their parents moved to the area in 1983.
In summer 2018, KETR released a three-part series of episodes of its investigative podcast "Buried" focusing on the Waco Bay development.
It explored claims by Parker’s late father Howard to have killed and buried at least one person in an unfinished well across from his home.
Investigators focused primarily on that property and three others Saturday.
The sheriff’s office was working with volunteers from Community United Effort -- CUE, a group based in North Carolina that assists law enforcement in missing person searches.
A CUE representative declined to comment while searches were ongoing.
Searchers followed several canine units operating independently throughout the day, identifying areas of interest with fluorescent markers.
The search coincided with a fast-moving cold front and unusually strong winds -- harsh conditions for dogs trained to follow scents.
Authorities kept the search tightly under wraps, with neither CUE nor the sheriff's office making a public announcement that it occurred.
Haines, the Hunt County detective, spoke to KETR in a brief exchange on a street aside one of the properties while it was being searched. He declined to provide more specific information about the search or its outcome.
