Search and Rescue Teams compares notes after a day of searching for 13-year-old girl Bianca Noel Piper.
(Laurie Skrivan/P-D)
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Authorities planned to resume the search today for Bianca Noel Piper, 13, who has been missing from her Lincoln County home since Thursday night.
Police dogs and more than 100 people on foot, horseback and in helicopters combed the rugged terrain around Bianca's small blue frame house Friday looking for any clue of the girl.
Piper has brown hair and eyes, is 5 feet 6 inches and 185 pounds. She was last seen wearing blue jeans, white tennis shoes and a gray Adidas hooded sweat shirt.
About 5 p.m. Friday, police set up a series of checkpoints on the gravel roads surrounding the widely scattered houses on Bianca's street, McIntosh Hill Road in Foley, in the hope that a motorist might have caught sight of the girl. But about 6:30 p.m., police called off the search until morning.
Lincoln County Sheriff Dan Torres said he was worried for the girl's well-being, presuming she was still in the woods and hadn't found shelter from the wintry weather. The temperature was expected to fall into the 30s overnight.
"That's not a good sign, the weather as it is," Torres said.
He said searchers planned to widen the search area and begin looking in some caves in the area today.
Police don't suspect foul play because there have been no sightings of the girl and they have heard no reports that she had been abducted.
The Lincoln County Sheriff's Department issued a public alert because of the cold weather and because the girl needs medication for a mental disability. Police said Bianca has the mental capacity of a second-grader and without her medication, she would become increasingly disoriented.
Bianca was last seen around 6 p.m. Thursday, about a mile from her home. Family members told police that Bianca is undergoing counseling and when she becomes upset, they drive her about a mile from home and let her walk back so she can calm down. They had dropped off Bianca on a bridge by a nearby creek Thursday night after she became upset about who was supposed to clean the dishes, authorities said. Her family gave Bianca a flashlight so she could see, but the girl never returned home.
Bianca attends Winfield Middle School, police said. She and her family moved to the area in October.
She lives with her mother, Shannon Tanner, her mother's boyfriend, Jim Felt, and a 15-year-old sister whose name was unavailable. Family members were not staying at the home.
Torres said police had questioned the girl's biological father, who lives in Fredericktown, Mo. Family members are holding up as well as could be expected, Torres said.
Anyone with information about Bianca's whereabouts should call the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department at 636-528-8546.
Reporter Tim Bryant
E-mail: tbryant@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 636-255-7211
Reporter Susan Weich
E-mail: sweich@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 636-255-7210 
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