UPDATE: In a communication late Friday night around 11 p.m., Big Horn County Sheriff Pete Big Hair stated that the BHCSO will be continuing their search in an official capacity Saturday along Interstate 90.
The search for a missing 16-year-old Hardin girl who reportedly wandered off from a broken-down vehicle between Billings and Hardin on New Year's Eve is growing, authorities said.
Investigators interviewed the people who were riding with Selina Not Afraid on New Year’s Day and have been searching two other places along Interstate 90.
The official search will end Friday night, but Big Horn County Sheriff Pete Big Hair expects family and friends will keep looking.
Detectives will also continue looking at other leads.
Big Hair said on Friday the search also included the Toluca off-ramp, exit 484, and exit 491, which he called the washout.
The van stalled at those spots after stopping for mechanical problems at a rest area at exit 476.
Crews continued to search at the rest area, where Not Afraid was left with a woman and then reportedly walked into the field.
On Wednesday and Thursday about 100 searched a three-to-five mile radius.
Big Hair said he was told that two men and two women in their 20s left because the driver was afraid his van would stall again.
When another ride arrived, Not Afraid was not there.
The sheriff says he's been getting different stories from witnesses.
"If I was confident, I wouldn't be having them to go back and revisit with them,” Big Hair said about his detectives. “From conflicting stories from the original interviews and then the second interview, that led us to re-interview them again. When they left the second time they stalled. She could've maybe got out there. So that's why we're checking that area, just to make sure because these are the two areas that they stopped before they got to Hardin."
Big Hair said investigators had planned on interviewing people at a party in Billings.
They will also be looking at surveillance video at some of the stores Not Afraid may have visited in Billings on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
