Crime & Safety

Volunteers Search Ross for Missing Mother

Searchers who began walking roads and wooded areas about 11 a.m. looked for a purple Cricket phone case with flowers, a black cloth purse with white skulls and a pair of glasses with pink speckles.

About 75 people gathered at the Brighton Road Giant Eagle Saturday morning to help in the search for Jamie Nichole Peterson, a Ross Township mother who has been missing for two weeks. 

Peterson, 30, hasn't been seen by friends or family since Monday, Sept. 26. Her mother, Darlene Peterson, reported her missing after her children, a 9-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl, returned home from school and couldn't find her.

Searchers began walking roads and wooded areas about 11 a.m. roughly between Route 65 and Perry Highway — narrowing in on the borough of Bellevue and the Seville neighborhood of Ross Township. They worked in groups of two and four.

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The family asked searchers to look in particular for a purple Cricket phone case with flowers, a black cloth purse with white skulls on it and a pair of glasses with pink speckles. 

Among those gathered Saturday were family members, friends of Peterson's parents and parents and friends of Peterson's children, who attend school in Bellevue in the Northgate School District.

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"We saw it on the news and figured we'd come out and do something," said Bellevue resident Jamie Hirth, whose 12-year-old daugher attends school with Peterson's daughter. 

Lisa Thompson traveled from Evans City to join the search after she said she heard about it in news reports. Peterson is her sister-in-law's niece.

"I just don't know anyone who would leave their kids behind," she said. 

Peterson's father, Jim, said he believes his daughter would have told someone if she needed to disappear so suddenly to clear her head. 

"I feel that something happened," he said. 

The last person known to have seen Peterson was an ex-boyfriend who came over that afternoon to pick up clothing he had left behind, he said. 

Witnesses have said she and the ex-boyfriend talked outside in the yard and that she did not get into his car, he said. 

Peterson and her children live in the area of North Fremont Avenue, near the township border with Bellevue. A car Peterson was using for transportation was still parked in front of the home when she went missing, police said.

 also drew residents of the area who have no connection to the family. 

Bellevue residents Thaddeus and Barbara Lange said they joined the effort out of a desire to help the local family. 

"Our hobby is walking, so that is the one thing we can do," Thaddeus Lange said. 

The search, which ended at about 5 p.m., didn't turn up anything useful, Jim Peterson said. 

"I'm going to have to regroup and figure out my next move," he said. 

Jamie Peterson attended  and graduated from Northgate High School. She attended Rosedale Technical Institute in 2004 and graduated in 2005 with an automative . A mechanic, she was on disability leave from a . 

Peterson is white, 5'3" tall and has a stocky build. She has shoulder-length brown hair with blond streaks and green eyes. She wears black glasses with pink speckles. She also has multiple tattoos, including a butterfly tattoo on her neck, a purple bear on her left arm, a cross on her left shoulder, a daisy on her right shoulder and a purple rose on her right breast.

Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to contact the  at 412-931-9070. 


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