Search for Cooke scaled back
By: Christian R. González
A limited search continues for Rachel Cooke who has been missing since Thursday.
Cook was last seen jogging on Thursday. New reports confirm that she was seen between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. by neighbors who said they saw her about 200 yards away from her house.
Other witnesses said they saw a white vehicle, possibly an older model Trans Am, with two men inside near the area. The men were between the ages of 18 and 21.
Williamson County Sheriff John Maspero announced the new information in a Tuesday morning press conference. He stressed the men in the white car are not necessarily suspects but they may be witnesses to whatever happened to Cooke. The license plates on the car were Texas plates but witnesses could not recall the numbers.
“Time is against us as more time goes by,” Maspero said of the likelihood of finding Cooke alive.
Maspero said three days of canvass searching by hundreds of volunteers hasn’t turned up any evidence.
The sheriff said that the newly released information has prompted new areas to be searched by law enforcement after scenarios were evaluated by investigators. Maspero noted that the Texas Rangers were assisting with the investigation.
Tuesday’s search has been scaled back and will not include helicopters or boats.
The new tips came from phone calls and neighbor interviews. Each house in Cooke’s neighborhood was visited at least three times by investigators, Maspero said.