Investigators believe she was abducted Saturday morning while jogging near her home, 13199 U.S. 127, near North Star.
Darke County sheriff's detectives are talking to the FBI and Topp's friends and co-workers about any information that can help in the search. Sgt. Bill Grice said they have learned nothing beyond what they already knew: Topp appeared to be happy, with no reason to leave home, and had no steady boyfriends or anyone else angry with her.
"It is still looking like an abduction," Grice said.
In the late afternoon Tuesday, brothers Lee and Curt Richardson leashed their two bloodhounds and began walking them through trees along a creek south of Wabash-York Road. Lysle McMechan allowed his German shepherd to run loose, and walked quickly behind it.
Topp's 27-year-old brother Todd, wearing heavy rubber boots and blue coveralls, looked exhausted. He walked behind the group for their sixth field search of the day.
Then the bloodhounds began pulling on their leashes. They tugged the Richardsons through thorny thickets, back and forth over a winding, muddy stream. Topp ran quickly behind.
After several hundred yards, the dogs left the trees and began skirting them, running through the edge of a farm field.
Todd Topp stopped.
"Is this a footprint?"
The splotch in the mud looked a little like a bare foot.
McMechan ran his dog over the site. Again. Again. The dog dug slightly into the ground, but did not get excited about finding a scent.
Then the men found the tread to a tennis shoe print nearby, and another. Topp and the Richardsons were unsure if it was a clue or just the print from one of the many searchers who have been combing the local fields since Saturday.
Kurt Richardson found the same print again further on. And a second print.
"One big, one small," he yelled to the others. "But they're too close together to be in a hurry."
The dogs tugged on. The men plunged down the 10-foot-deep embankment to the bottom of Swamp Creek. They pushed through thickets, urging the animals to find a scent.
After winding through the fields for half an hour, the dogs stopped pulling. They wandered on their leashes. They were tired, and nothing around seemed to keep their interest.
The men trudged back, across a deep field covered with the stubble of corn stalks. Topp walked very slowly, and soon trailed the others by a hundred yards.
"We just wanted to make sure there was nothing down there," Kurt Richardson said.
More than 60 volunteers worked out of the firehouse in the village of North Star on Tuesday, coordinated by the Tri-State Search and Rescue team from Cincinnati.
Workers expected to extend the search into Shelby and Mercer counties and into Indiana soon.
Topp's father, Joe, sat with mud-caked pants in the firehouse and watched volunteers come and go.
He urged farmers in the area to check their fields and outbuildings every day.
"They should hunt their property because she can be any place," Topp said. "That will help me more than anything, help her more than anything."
* CONTACT Jim Bebbington at 335-3997 or e-mail him at jim_bebbington@coxohio.com
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$10,000 reward
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Anyone with information about Lynn Topp is asked to
call (888) 384-6795. Topp, 19, is 5-foot-4, weighs 150 pounds and has been missing since 8 a.m. Saturday from the vicinity of North Star in northern Darke County.
PHOTO: JAN UNDERWOOD DAYTON DAILY NEWS
Curt Richardson and his bloodhound search Tuesday for traces of
Lynn Topp, who has been missing since Saturday.