No Suspects, Few Clues in Student Kidnap
There's still no sign of Brianna Dension nearly a week after she vanished.
Jan. 25, 2008 — -- No suspects, few clues and one teenager whose disappearance has baffled law enforcement and frightened her family and friends.
If you have any information on this case, please call the 24-hour tip line at 775-745-3521.
It's been nearly a week since Brianna Denison disappeared as she slept on a friend's couch after the pair returned home from a party at a Reno casino. Police believe she was the victim of an abduction, likely by a stranger.
A trace of blood was left behind on her pillow, as were the teenager's shoes, cell phone and purse. Missing with Denison was a stuffed bear she had been given to use as an extra cushion.
Denison's friend K.T. Hunter awoke to find that the young woman, a native of Reno, Nev., studying at a Santa Barbara, Calif., college, was gone. Hunter's bedroom door, which was locked, was just feet from the couch where Denison was sleeping.
The house near the Reno's University of Nevada campus, rented by four college-age friends, was unlocked, but whoever abducted her must have tread lightly. Neither Hunter nor her dog heard anything in the night. Hunter called police to report Denison's disappearance Sunday morning.
"We're hoping we get the one big clue that comes in and is really critical," Steve Frady, a spokesman for the Reno Police Department, told ABC News.
But Frady acknowledged that while Nevada authorities, with help from the FBI, continue to look into tips, there are no suspects in Denison's abduction.
Reno public works employees are combing through the city's storm drain system. Detectives are moving door-to-door to speak to neighbors in the area, including more than 100 registered sex offenders within a mile of the house. That is on top of another 1,700 sex offenders authorities are contacting throughout the county.
"We're going wherever we can go with this case," Frady said.
Denison's picture and missing-person information is being flashed on the digital billboards along the casino town's main strip. The young woman's family has posted a $100,000 reward in the case and the Secret Witness Program, an anonymous tip line taking information on her disappearance, offered another $2,500.
Earlier in the week, Denison's family and friends, who describe her as a levelheaded and selfless college student, made a dramatic plea to her abductor to return the young woman safely. "If Brianna can see us, or the abductor, have a heart," Lauren Denison, Brianna's aunt, said. "Just give her back to us."
Authorities this week also ruled a man who had been implicated in the abduction case after he dropped off another one of Denison's friends at the same house where the missing young woman had been staying.
The man picked up Denison's friend around 1 a.m. Sunday at the Sands Regency Hotel Casino from the same party Denison was attending after she could not hail a taxi. "We have eliminated him as having involvement in the case," Frady said.
Denison was in Reno for winter break from Santa Barbara City College in California. She and her friends were attending events tied to the Summer Winter Action Tours Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. It's an annual party, with events in Reno and Lake Tahoe, that Denison reportedly had attended in the past.
Reno police said there was no indication that Denison had been drinking heavily or using drugs Saturday night, and that none of the roommates who live in the house reported any altercations at the casino party.
Authorities believe Denison was barefoot, wearing only what she had worn to bed -- sweats and a white tank top. She is described as 5 feet tall, weighing 98 pounds, with long dark brown hair and blue eyes.