SOUTHSIDE, W.Va. –– Volunteers, law enforcement, and search organizers were gearing up to restart the search for a missing seven year old girl in Mason County Wednesday morning, when the girl they were looking for came walking out of the woods.
Deliah Clark, 7, of Southside had gone missing in the Jeffers Ridge community about 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday with her two dogs. Search teams had been combing the wooded area ever since and had halted the search early Wednesday morning to await daylight.
“She actually went across the road to tell her great grandfather good night,” said Sheriff Greg Powers. “When she left there to come back to her house, that’s when she went missing. When she was found, she came walking up the road and could see the house from where she was.”
Powers and the State Police were in the process of lining up a dive team to search a nearby pond and trying to coordinate a return tot he scene by the State Police helicopter and k-9 tracking dogs. The planning came to a euphoric halt according to Powers.
“We were pretty ecstatic,” he said. “Anytime we can get a child back safe and sound, that’s as good as it gets.”
Deliah had her Chihuahua dog in her arms and her basset hound had come out of the woods about 20 minutes earlier. She appeared to be cold and a bit dehydrated, but otherwise okay. Authorities took her to the hospital for observation. It’s still not known exactly how she wound up straying off her path back across the road and wound up in the woods. The investigation to tie up those loose ends continued.
“We haven’t had an opportunity to talk to her,” said Power. “That’s just part of the investigation with loose ends we needed to get tidied up. We want to make sure that is what happened, she wandered off looking for her dogs or whatever the case may be.”