Organized ground search for Sheree Fertuck has wound down

The ground search for Sheree Fertuck, the 51-year-old woman missing from the Kenaston, Sask., area for more than two weeks, has wound down.

"We closed the organized group search off on Friday evening[Dec. 18],when the search people came in, in consultation with the family members," said Gene Whitehead, the local Emergency Management Organization co-ordinator. "We pretty well exhausted the search area."

The volunteer search began on Dec. 15 and lasted four days.

Whitehead said in that time, about 120 square miles (311 square kilometres) were covered, surrounding the gravel pit where Fertuck was believed to have last been before her disappearance, and taking in "probably over a hundred old, abandoned farms."

It's a hard decision to reach.- Gene Whitehead, local co-ordinator, Emergency Management Organization

On the first day of the search, about 75 people took part. There were about 45 participants on days two and three, and about 35 on the final day.

"It's a hard decision to reach [to stop searching]," Whitehead said.

But, having exhausted where they thought Fertuck might be, and with Christmas a week away, the decision was made.

Even so, some smaller groups are still going out, he added.

"Saturday and Sunday, there was probably 10 or 15 snow machines and people out looking around some of the sloughs, covering areas maybe that hadn't been covered, the odd quarter-section, " Whitehead explained.

He said in the meantime, most of the landowners in the area have reported looking over their land and buildings, "and haven't seen anything that's out of place."

Most of the searchers were distant relatives of the missing woman, he noted.