Utah police continue search for missing 5-year-old girl

HYRUM, Utah (KSTU/CNN) – Inside the Hyrum Shortstop it looks like business as usual. But outside, something unusual is happening as search crews dig through garbage, gathering around the dumpster out back and combing the street.

No one can find 5-year old Lizzy Shelley. Not in Hyrum, not in Logan where she disappeared from her home Saturday morning.

Police say they think her uncle, Alex Whipple, knows what happened, but he won’t say.

Logan Police Captain Tyson Budge stated, “All I can say is we have evidence to believe he is the reason she is missing.” So, they’re trying to fill in the blanks.

The Hyrum Shortstop gave them some help. “Little girl goes missing… something like this no one can find it,” Ryan Liljenquist said.

Ryan said he saw Whipple Saturday. “Disheveled, like he had been on a binge of some kind,” he explained.

That was hours after Lizzy disappeared. “He was walking this way from the townhouses over there to come in here to buy something,” Ryan added. He said Whipple was by himself, wearing an odd outfit. “He was wearing a gray hoodie underneath a suit and a tie, something really weird.” That was at 1:30 p.m. Ryan said.

Less than two hours later, authorities caught up to Whipple near some corrals on a dirt country road a few miles away.

Captain Budge said, “We’d really like to find her, we are trying everything we know.”

200 searchers, a 10-mile span, 2 days, and still nothing.

It’s something that’s bothering Ryan and the entire valley. “I feel terrible for the family,” Ryan said. “This is something that doesn’t deserve to happen. Things shouldn’t go this way, and I fear the worse. I hope we find her, but it’s not looking good.”