Police planning foot search for missing woman at Walnut Knob

By Roger Mannon
Staff Writer

The search of a pond for a missing woman concluded Thursday. Now authorities will expand their search around the vicinity.
Latisha M. Faust of Patrick County was shopping at Floyd Pharmacy on December 9, and she hasn’t been seen since.
Faust’s car was discovered at a pond on Walnut Knob Road off the Blue Ridge Parkway on New Year’s eve. Weather hampered several search attempts at the pond until Thursday’s final effort.
Law enforcement from three jurisdictions searched the pond twice with underwater robotic cameras. A State Police dive team searched on three additional occasions, once having to cut through ice with a saw.
On another occasion the pond, about an acre and a half in size, was half-thawed. Searchers also had problems reaching the site when heavy snows and drifting made the road impassable except for four-wheel drive vehicles.
Thursday’s search, which included seven divers, was the first one with no ice on the pond. “We were finally able to finish our search of the pond and we didn’t find anything,” said Lt. Stephen McGuire, of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department.
A jack line was strung across the pond, and divers followed it underwater from bank to bank, one hand on the line and the other on the bottom of the pond. After each crossing, the line was moved two feet and the process repeated.
“The pond is not very deep,” McGuire said. “There are a few spots where it may be ten feet deep, but most of it you can stand up in.”
McGuire said the next phase of the investigation will be a foot search of the area where the car was discovered. He described Walnut Knob, on the Floyd-Franklin County border, as “rugged terrain.”
McGuire said such a search will take a while to coordinate. “We will have volunteers, and canine units (come) as far away as Richmond. We have to decide if we’ll search a quarter-mile radius, which would be a half-mile area, or a half-mile radius, which would be a mile area.” Searchers will use GIS maps to determine search coordinates, McGuire said.
“This is a mountainous area, with some near-vertical drops,” he noted. “From here you can see to Rocky Mount and Smith Mountain Lake.
“There are a lot of woods,” he added. “We want to get started before the foliage and underbrush start growing.”