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Cassandra Gross' family, friends organizing search effort

A longtime friend of Cassandra Gross is spearheading a search for the missing Latrobe woman.

He says they have about 150 people willing to search but they want state police to support their effort.

While a family friend spent the day hanging “missing person” posters in windows throughout Latrobe, Gross’ parents spent the day Friday moving her furniture out of her townhome.

“It’s horrible. You’re cleaning all her stuff out and you know there’s no hope she’s coming back, but where is she?” Kathe Gross said.

It’s been nearly 2 months and the Grosses still don’t have answers.

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“I want her home. That’s the bottom line and I will do whatever I have to do and I will back up whoever I have to back up to see that that happens,” Kathe Gross said.

Family and friends are now getting help from the nonprofit organization Bring Our Missing Home in hopes of sharing Cassandra’s story nationally, while trying to organize a search party here at home. But investigators aren’t encouraging it.

"Police say it'll interfere in their investigation. It's been two months and she's laying out there somewhere. And if somebody else finds her besides the police, God bless them," Kathe Gross said.

In the days following her disappearance, state police scoured properties in Unity and Hempfield townships, using bloodhounds and cadaver dogs to try to find any trace of her, but Cassandra’s family wants to see more done to bring her home.

“They’re doing what they can but more needs to be done. The search parties, they can’t hurt anything, and if they have people search where police already did, so what?” Kathe Gross said. “It’s the people’s time and their legwork so it shouldn’t matter.”

State police say the investigators assigned to Cassandra’s missing persons case are eating, sleeping and breathing her disappearance.

Family friends are hoping to have support from the state police and the Bring Our Missing Home organization to get a search party out there in the next week.