Menlo police call out the dogs to creek Menlo police call out the dogs to creek (January 19, 2005)

Bloodhounds and investigators were called out to search an area around San Francisquito Creek in Menlo Park on January 17 after some early-morning newspaper deliverers reported seeing a woman "in distress" there, police said.

The witnesses told police around 5 a.m. that they had seen a woman in a vehicle about 3 a.m. near Woodland Avenue just east of Middlefield Road who looked as though she "might have been there against her will," said Sgt. Sharon Kaufman of the Menlo Park Police Department.

Investigators searched the area until about 10 a.m. and found no woman, Sgt. Kaufman said, adding: "We still to this point don't even know if a crime's been committed. We took every step that we took to be sure."

Sgt. Kaufman said officers had found "a couple of things that raised our suspicions a little bit ... a couple of things that looked out of place," but she would not elaborate. She said she did not want to compromise a criminal investigation of the scene, should there end up being one.

The Menlo Park Police Department does not have bloodhounds; Sgt. Kaufman said the dogs were borrowed either from the San Jose Police Department or from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office of Emergency Services.

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