Crime & Safety

Searchers Combing Easley Property for Missing Charleston Woman

Searchers from CUE Center for Missing Persons and law enforcement hoping to find clues in the case of Marjorie Gayle McCaffrey, missing since March.

Searchers are hoping a property in the Dacusville community will reveal clues about the case of a Charleston area woman who has been missing since March.

The Charleston County Sheriff's Office announced earlier this week that Charleston County Sheriff's Detectives and searchers with the CUE Center for Missing Persons would be gathering in the Easley area Saturday morning, as part of the ongoing effort to find.

Searchers patrolled the 200-acre property off Freeman Bridge Road with horses, dogs and ground support.

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Monica Caison, founder and executive director with the CUE Center said searchers were on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary at the site.

McCaffrey's husband Bob took a trip to Easley on March 17, the day his wife was last seen. Investigators say Bob McCaffrey is a suspect in his wife's disappearance.

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“Gayle has a tie to this area,” Caison said. “That's why we're here, just wanting to clear an area that may be associated to her and possibly her disappearance.”

She said the area had never been searched in connection with Gayle McCaffrey's disappearance prior to today.

She said her group was working on a “search list” of sites “at the request of law enforcement.”

“There's several areas that law enforcement have been searching, and want searched, and this is just one of them,” Caison said, of the property, which belongs to a family member. “

She said investigators had no new information that had led them to the property.

“This is just an area that they're basically wanting to take off the task list,” Caison said.

Caison said searchers came from Texas, North Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Florida and North and South Carolina to search the site today.

She said a lot of the 200-acre property was “very tough terrain.”

“There's a lot of water,” Caison said.

Horses and canines gives searchers an advantage.

“We're utilizing horses, not only because it gives the height to look down at things and maybe an area of concern where we can send ground support in,” Caison said. “We're also looking for any disturbances or weak parts in the ground, that's why you'll see grid searches, why they're walking in a line. We're trying to do tight grid searches of all the open area. It would take a dog an enormous amount of time to cover it in a grid. We can utilize … horses in that effort. If there's anything (searchers) question or suspect, then they'll call in for a canine.”

The CUE Center was founded 18 years ago to serve as liaison between families and law enforcement and “to activate communities and bring forth an awareness of missing individuals, especially missing adults,” Caison said.

“All the efforts we do to aid a case, we want to get to an area to search,” she said. “Our belief is that you cannot locate a missing person unless you find evidence and/or them.”

She said the group is involved in searches “almost every day of the week.”

“Our goal is clear areas,” Caison said. “Even if you don't find the individual or evidence on the area that you're searching, we're eliminating space. And eventually we get to the right space.”

 


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