For 48 hours, until Jessica turned up unharmed at a children's clinic five miles away, they watched as police scoured the park pond to see whether she had drowned, and later turned their attention to the whereabouts of a tattooed man whom witnesses had spotted talking to the girl.
The saga began Aug. 30, when The Associated Press published a photograph of the soaked, bearded man being helped by two rescuers in Slidell after he nearly drowned, swept away in waist-deep water.