Search for Zahra Baker: Where to Look Next?

Photo Courtesy - ABC News(HICKORY, N.C.) -- Authorities charged with the task of searching for the body of missing North Carolina girl Zahra Baker have had to continually expand their search after previous efforts turned up little.

Police in Hickory, N.C., aided by teams from area sheriff's offices and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which deploys specialized search units, have already combed through the family's home, the wooded areas nearby and the property where the 10-year-old's father worked.

Hickory police on Friday removed three pieces of bedroom furniture -- including a bed frame, mattress and box springs -- from the house where Zahra Baker lived with her parents, according to the Hickory Record newspaper. Police also carried out two bags of evidence.

Neither area police nor sheriff's offices returned calls seeking comment Friday.

The search for Zahra, who had lost her hearing and left leg to cancer, was reclassified Tuesday as a homicide investigation.

Zahra's stepmother, Elisa Baker, was jailed on a felony obstruction of justice charge the same day. Baker was already in custody, having been arrested over the weekend on several charges unrelated to her stepdaughter's disappearance.

Though police said she admitted Tuesday to writing a ransom note after demanding $1 million, she has since denied she had anything to do with Zahra's disappearance.

Dogs have found the "presence of human remains" in both of the Bakers' cars, police have said, and "possible blood" was found in one.

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