FOUNTAIN HILLS -- Hundreds of volunteers and police continue to scour the desert northeast of metro Phoenix in search of a 19-year-old nursing student, who is thought to have been brutally raped and murdered.
Volunteers picked through the prickly pear and mesquite on foot, horseback, ATVs and dirt bikes Saturday in search of Jackie Hartman of Gilbert.
Hartman, who has been missing for a week, is believed to have been kidnapped by Jonathan Burns, 25. Burns was arrested last week after police found Hartman's bullet-riddled, bloodstained shirt and other items in a Chandler trash bin near Burns' home.
Hartman met Burns at a gas station days before her disappearance, and shed been out with the ex-convict the night she disappeared.
Police believe Hartmans body may have been dumped in the wilderness between Fountain Hills and Payson, where Burns used his cell phone within a few hours of Hartmans disappearance.
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Because of the uncertainty about whether Hartman is alive, police sent two types of K-9 units Saturday: tracking dogs to sniff for her scent, and cadaver dogs to scout for decomposition.
"We'll be here as long as it takes, or until sundown," said Barbara Markley, a former corrections officer from Florence. She and Amy Wells, of Mesa, headed out on foot, planning to "think like criminals."
Some 50 officers from Gilbert and Chandler police departments, the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office, the Department of Public Safety and the Arizona Game and Fish Department joined 100 trained volunteers from Sheriff Joe Arpaios posse to begin a highly coordinated search for Hartman at 6:30 a.m. Saturday.
Officers quartered off for themselves an area south of Sunflower after receiving a tip from someone who'd seen a red truck -- like the one owned by Burns -- in the area on the morning of the disappearance.
Search crews ended the day more than 12 hours later with nothing to report. The volunteers were expected to continue the search Sunday.
