NEWPORT-Officers with the Tennessee Bureau of
Investigation, Cocke County Sheriff's Department, and Newport Police Department
conducted two more searches on Wednesday for any clues to missing teenager
Megan Maxwell's whereabouts.
The searches that took place "east of town,"
Newport Police Chief Maurice Shults said, "didn't yield anything."
They were conducted based on some "information"
officers had received, but which the police chief downplayed as "not
really a lead."
Shults said Wednesday's searches were conducted
"right behind each other." He said he was present when they began,
but did not stay for the entire length of the searches.
William Brownlow Marsh, Assistant District Attorney
General, said Tuesday, "We're not at a standstill" in the
investigation of the possible murder case.
Maxwell, 19, disappeared early Sunday morning on April
26, nearly two months ago. She apparently has not been heard from since.
Maxwell's Mitsubishi Eclipse was discovered burned up the
morning she disappeared.
Asked if perhaps he thought Maxwell had run away and kept
silent since then, Brownlow said, "That's always a possibility until we
find her."
Meanwhile, all news media inquiries have been directed to
Brownlow to handle, including those addressed to the lead investigator in the
case, Detective Derrick Woods of the Cocke County Sheriff's Department.
"No one has reported seeing her, period,"
Brownlow said.
Talk of sightings of Maxwell "are just rumors, and
no one has (even) fessed up to" take responsibility for starting them, he
said.
Brownlow refused to comment on future investigative
plans.
Shults said investigators were being mostly tight-lipped
for a good reason. "We have to be careful because we don't want any
potential defendants" to be tipped off by a news media report naming them
as suspects, he said.
Brownlow asked citizens "to report any information
no matter how small or unimportant they might think it is."
A search of a landfill in Hamblen County June 13 did not
result in the discovery of Maxwell's body.
Several other searches, including some using concerned
volunteers in the community, have apparently not turned up any clues.
Although some officials have previously referred to
Jeffrey Lee Stock, 41, as a "person of interest" in Maxwell's
disappearance, Brownlow would not confirm Stock as a suspect or "person of
interest."
Stock is in federal custody after a federal grand jury
indicted him for allegedly traveling in interstate commerce and failing to
register as a sex offender.
Stock was arrested in Cocke County on April 27 at 3:40
a.m., the day after Maxwell disappeared, and charged with a violation of the
sex offender registry, court records show. He was arrested by detective Woods.