"Renewed Search for Missing Girl"<BR> Posted by Ishtar93 on Jan-12-01 at 05:38 PM (EST)<P> Renewed Search for Missing Girl<BR> New tip in '91 Case of Nikki Campbell<P> Charlie Goodyear, Bernadette Tansey, Erin Hallissy, Chronicle Staff Writers Thursday, January 11,<BR> 2001 <P> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------<P> Police searched a crawl space under a Fairfield house yesterday, a block away from where 4-year-old<BR> Amanda "Nikki" Campbell lived when she disappeared nine years ago. <P> Acting on a tip that they may find the kidnapped girl's body underneath the tri-level white stucco<BR> house on Salisbury Drive, police conducted the search with the consent of the current occupants,<BR> who did not live there in December 1991, when Nikki was last seen alive. <P> Four detectives who left the house in an unmarked blue sedan yesterday afternoon would not<BR> comment. A short while later, a woman inside the house told reporters: "We'd like you to respect our<BR> privacy. It's a difficult situation." <P> Fairfield Police Lt. Brent Baird confirmed that police got a tip in November that Nikki may have been<BR> lured to the house on Dec. 27, 1991, the last day she was seen. The tipster said Nikki's body may be<BR> buried under the house, which Baird characterized as information that police had never heard before.<BR> In their "initial" search, police found no evidence to link the house to the girl. <P> "It may turn out to be the break we were looking for, or it may be a complete waste of time," said<BR> Baird, who indicated that police would conduct further searches of the house. <P> Yesterday, Elizabeth Young, who owned the house in 1991, said Nikki had come to her house the day<BR> before she disappeared wanting to play with her young nephews, who had been living there with their<BR> father but had moved away. That was the last time Young saw Nikki. <P> Young denied that the house could be connected in any way to Nikki's disappearance, saying she and<BR> her family had actually helped search for the girl after she was reported missing. She said there would<BR> never have been any opportunity for anyone in the household to commit such a crime. <P> "I was home there all the time," said Young, who now lives in Suisun City. <P> Baird did not characterize anyone in Young's family as a suspect, and Young said she had not been<BR> contacted by police either in 1991 or now. <P> Nikki's mother, who has remarried and now goes by the name Ann Campbell- Javier, is holding little<BR> hope that the tip would solve the crime and give her closure to almost a decade of agony. <P> "I'm sure they investigated all that when Nikki was taken," she said in an interview at her Vallejo<BR> home. "I'm sure they were all checked out then." <P> The tip came in as Fairfield Police Det. Harold Sagan, who had dogged the case for years, was<BR> retiring. Sagan had long believed that an Oakland man, Timothy Bindner, had kidnapped Nikki, and in<BR> 1992 police searched his home and named him as a suspect. Bindner, who maintained his innocence in<BR> Nikki's case and the disappearances of several other East Bay girls, sued Fairfield for defamation and<BR> received a $90,000 settlement in 1997. <P> Campbell-Javier said she believes that Sagan did a thorough job investigating the case and does not<BR> believe any searches of the house will turn up evidence of her daughter. <P> "I don't believe this is going to be anything more than 'get your hopes up and see you later,' " she<BR> said. <P> Nikki was last seen after leaving with her brother, Matthew, to ride bikes to different friends's houses.<BR> Matthew, a year older than Nikki, returned, but Nikki's bike was later found a half-block from their<BR> home on Salisbury Drive. <P> Campbell-Javier said she believes deep down that her daughter is dead. <P> "I'm always going to have hope that she's out there. But it's been nine years," Campbell-Javier said.<BR> "And even if she does come home, she's not going to be the little girl I raised. She'll be a different<BR> person, depending on what they've done to her and what kind of life they've had her live."<P> E-mail Charlie Goodyear at cgoodyear@sfchronicle.com, Bernadette Tansey at<BR> btansey@sfchronicle.com and Erin Hallissy at ehallissy@sfchronicle.com. <P> <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/01/11/MNC115650.DTL";>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/01/11/MNC115650.DTL<;/a><P> <BR> <BR> <P><BR> Table of Contents <P><BR> Searchers leave empty-handed, Ishtar93, 11:40 PM, Jan-13-01 <P><BR> <P> <BR> <P> Messages in this discussion <P> <BR> 1 . "Searchers leave empty-handed"<BR> Posted by Ishtar93 on Jan-13-01 at 11:40 PM (EST)<BR> Searchers leave empty-handed<P><BR> By Rowena Lugtu-Shaddox<P> FAIRFIELD - Police and FBI agents Thursday evening concluded their search at a Salisbury Drive home<BR> for the body of 4-year-old Amanda Nikki Campbell.<P> "Just because the search proved fruitless doesn't mean the rest of the information is of no value,"<BR> Fairfield police Lt. Brent Baird said Friday.<P> "One of the positive things about this is it brings a lot of memories back to people who share those<BR> with us, or suspicions they had at the time," Baird said. "Anytime someone can share that, it<BR> increases our chance for the lead that cracks the case. All we need is one."<P> Investigators began searching the crawl space of the home on Wednesday, almost two months after<BR> receiving information that a resident there at the time of Nikki's disappearance allegedly killed and<BR> buried her there.<P> The culprit reportedly admitted the act to others and eventually the lead made its way to cops.<P> But while police have no evidence of a crime at the Salisbury Drive home, they continue following the<BR> information that led them there. On Thursday, a team of officers scoured the area for a Fairfield man<BR> possibly connected to Nikki's disappearance, sources said. Baird on Friday wouldn't comment if<BR> they've found him or if they were questioning additional people. <P> Thursday evening, detectives questioned an associate of the Fairfield man. He was reportedly in<BR> Vacaville this week but has since "dropped out of sight."<P> Rowena Lugtu-Shaddox can be reached at rshaddox@dailyrepublic.net.<P> <a href="http://www.dailyrepublic.com/display/inn_news/NEWS3.TXT";>http://www.dailyrepublic.com/display/inn_news/NEWS3.TXT<;/a><BR>