-From The Brewton Standard

A regional effort, including billboards, has been launched to bring home Brewton’s missing 16-year-old Brooke Lee Bridges.

Brewton Chief Monte McGougin said Thursday evening the multi-agency search effort, which included neighboring county sheriff’s departments and state and federal agencies, continues to turn up few leads.

“At this point, we are still looking at this as a missing person case, and nothing has changed,” McGougin said of the earlier details that described how Brooke Lee Bridges was reported missing early Monday morning from the family home in the Alco area of Brewton, near Jefferson Davis Community College.

“At this point, we have a missing person bulletin which includes photos, a physical description and a phone number to call with information,” he said. “These billboards will be set up in the southeast part of the United States as well on the FBI Twitter account.

“We also have the FBI car team, which is a child abduction response deployment team out of Quantico, Va., that brings child abduction expertise, behavioral analysts and technical expertise in this area,” he said.

McGougin said teams from Klass Kids and Center for Missing and Exploited Children have responded with rescue dogs, dive teams and sonar capabilities for the lakes and ponds in this area. Personnel have also worked to canvas the neighborhoods where Bridges was last seen.

“And we continue to talk to anyone who might have seen something in the early morning hours of Monday,” McGougin said. “I still ask all of you to help us and if you know anything about the (disappearance) of this child to contact the Brewton Police Department. Let us know. Nothing is too small.”

Those with information are asked to call the BPD at 251.867.3214 or 251.867.3212.

McGougin said the 911 call came into the BPD shortly after the teen’s father awake at 4:30 a.m. Monday for work and found an open front door and his daughter missing. Investigators arrived at 8:30 a.m. Monday and since then have worked around the clock to locate the girl.

Douglas Astralaga, spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Mobile office, said the FBI becomes involved in missing person cases any time a child is involved.

In addition to the FBI and SBI, McGougin said several hundred people – “from patrons to professionals” – are searching a five-mile radius around Alco Lake.

Bridges’ mother, Lisa, told The Brewton Standard Tuesday that her daughter would not have run away and left the home wearing only her pajamas and glasses – no shoes and no jacket.