WAKE FOREST — It has been almost a month since nine-year-old C.J. Wilkerson disappeared from his Wake Forest home. The man charged with his kidnapping will not say a word, prompting police to launch a massive search Wednesday morning.
Tracy Gill, C.J.'s mother, believes her son is still alive.
"I know my son is alive," Gill says. "I still have that faith that my son is still alive."
Wilkerson disappeared without a trace on Jan. 12. Police arrested Gill's estranged boyfriend, Derrick Glover, and charged him with kidnapping. C.J. was never found and Glover will not reveal his whereabouts.
Desperate for any leads, Wake Forest police and more than 100 trained professionals are searching the wooded area behind C.J.'s home, planning to cover three square miles. That search began at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
"We're hoping that if anything is there, the dogs will pick up on it first to cut down on our time," says Sgt. Mike Greg Dixon of the Wake Forest Police. "We had a snow on Jan. 17 and one on Jan. 19, which was the day that Glover got caught."
"Then, we had the big snow on Jan. 23, and it has been snow on the ground for the whole time," Dixon says. "Any evidence, we would be looking for, may be covered up by snow."
Gill says she wished the search would have taken place sooner.
"I feel like it should been done the next day," Gill says. "There was no snow on the ground that next day."
"They came back a week later before the snow even got here, and they brought one dog here and searched," Gill says. "I feel they should have done this before four weeks."
TheN.C. Highway Patroland WRAL'sSky 5are assisting in the search.
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