100s of volunteers search for missing Utah woman

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PROVO, Utah (AP) — Hundreds of volunteers searched for a missing Provo woman on Saturday, a day after her family and Elizabeth Smart issued an impassioned plea for the public's help.

Some 250 people searched for 26-year-old Elena Laguna Salgado of Chiapas, Mexico, who moved to Provo about a month ago to study English and vanished April 16.

Provo Police Chief John King called her disappearance suspicious, saying she was a responsible person who usually talked with family every day.

She hasn't been heard from since leaving the Provo school where she was learning English.

Saturday's search was divided into 43 grids, which were then assigned to specific groups of volunteers.

Searchers combed her walking route from school, neighborhoods surrounding the Mexican restaurant where she worked and the apartment building where she lived.

Smart was 14 when she was snatched out of her Salt Lake City bedroom in 2002. She was held captive for nine months before being found walking with her captor in Sandy.