SAN DIEGO – The volunteer search for missing toddler Jahi Turner has ended and the maternal grandmother who headed the effort is heading back to her Maryland home, those familiar with the operation said Wednesday.
Penny Thompson of Frederick, Md., "completely ceased all operations" of the Jahi Recovery Centre on Monday, said volunteer Carl Davis, the owner of Juanita's Place restaurant in San Diego.
"Everything has pretty much been shut down."
Wednesday, the center's phone and fax numbers were disconnected.
Thompson could not be reached, but officials at the Tubman Chavez Cultural Arts Center, where the Jahi center was based, confirmed the group was no longer operating out of the building.
Davis said he met with Thompson for about two hours Tuesday night. "She just expressed a great deal of frustration. She feels she didn't get enough support financially. She felt there was not enough reward money put up, and she couldn't afford to sustain herself in a hotel.
The effort, however, could resume later.
"Her intention is to go back home (to Maryland) and regroup and raise money," Davis said, "and then relocate here and begin searching again."
Jahi's stepfather, Tieray Jones, reported the 2-year-old boy missing on the afternoon of April 25. He said they were at a playground in San Diego's Balboa Park when he left the boy for about 15 minutes to get a soda from a nearby vending machine. When he returned, Jahi was gone.
Investigators say the story is bogus, but insist they are still treating the case as an abduction.
Even though the center has ceased operations, a much smaller effort is continuing. Private investigator Bill Garcia, who helped in the Danielle van Dam search earlier this year, said Wednesday that he and five others plan to continue searching canyons with a German shepherd near where Jahi was reported missing.
Garcia's group had coordinated a large-scale search for Jahi that lasted for 12 days and included more than 1,100 volunteers. The large-scale search ended May 9.
"We've never completely shut down," Garcia said. "In effect, we are still quietly moving along, monitoring and searching specific canyons and other areas."
Last Saturday, 70 members of the sheriff's search and rescue team combed canyons and ravines of Balboa Park near where the boy was last seen, but they said that nothing of significance was found.
Sharon Arsenault, a Tubman Chavez center spokeswoman, praised Recovery Centre volunteers, saying they were "very nice, and made sure they didn't interfere with any classes that we had here. They left everything very clean ...We did not ask them to leave."
