Mar 14, 2009 11:37 pm US/Eastern
As Police Search, Mom Prays For Teen's Return
MIDDLE RIVER, Md. (WJZ) ―
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Police continue to search a dumpster company in Middle River for a missing girl as the teen's mother prays she's still alive.
Police continue to search a dumpster company in Middle River for a missing girl. Meanwhile, the teen's mother prays she is still alive.
Suzanne Collins reports police now have new information about a man the girl might have met.
Rochelle Battle, 16, hasn't been seen or heard from for eight days.
Baltimore County Police are concerned that Battle may have met a stranger just before she disappeared. Police are identifying him as a white man in his 30s.
This weekend, police continued to search for her or evidence tied to her disappearance miles from her Pimlico home at the Easy Pickins Junkyard in Middle River.
The teen's mother is in a panic.
"I'm hurting badly because I don't know if she's still here with us or if she's left," said Rochelle's mother, LaTarsha Cockey. "I just want my daughter back."
Cockey last spoke to her daughter on a cell phone Friday, March 6 at 10 p.m. The teen said she took the subway and a bus to Eastern Baltimore County to go to Eastpoint Mall.
Later, the family learned she connected with a man in Baltimore County. Battle had called her girlfriend to say she was with her "white friend." As her family continually tried to get in touch with her, Battle's cell phone went dead.
"At first, it would just ring and go to the voice mail," Cockey said. "Then all of a sudden, it was just off."
Police are not saying what evidence ties Battle's disappearance to the search at the junk yard, which covers more than eight acres.
They have canvassed surrounding woods, sifted through ash in a makeshift incinerator and picked through dumpsters.
"They don't know if she's dead. They don't know if she's alive," said Baltimore County Police spokesman Bill Toohey. "They don't even know if she's here."
Still, Battle's mother holds out hope.
"I'm hoping for the best, that she's out there somewhere and they're going to find her," said Cockey.
Cockey says she is sure her daughter would have called her if she were OK.
Police want anyone who may have seen Rochelle Battle on March 6 to call the Baltimore County Police Homicide Unit at
(410) 887-3943.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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