An anonymous tip sent volunteers scouring the Irvine Park area in St. Paul over the weekend as the investigation into what happened to a missing 45-year-old Vadnais Heights mother entered its seventh week.
The search effort — which turned up no sign of Michelle Lee Newell — was led by the Minnesota Community Policing Foundation, a nonprofit organization that aims to bolster public safety efforts across the state, according to David Singleton, the group’s chairman.
The group was involved in the search for Barway Collins, a 10-year-old boy from Crystal killed by his father during the spring of 2015. Volunteer searchers found his body in the Mississippi River.
About 15 people spread across Irvine Park on Saturday morning looking for signs of Newell, whom relatives haven’t seen since late August. Police believe an acquaintance killed her and left her body in a farm building in North or South Dakota.
The community group set its sights on the West Seventh-area park after receiving an anonymous tip on one of its phone lines suggesting law enforcement’s primary suspect in the case, Timothy Barr, might have fed police informants false information about what happened to her, Singleton said Monday.
The group does not know who the tipster was or if he or she has any direct knowledge of the case.
“Somebody called in and basically said they didn’t think Timothy Barr was being honest about where he disposed of the body and that (we) should probably look more in St. Paul, and that was all we got,” Singleton said.
A spokesman for the Ramsey County sheriff’s office said it welcomed the group’s aid.
“We have from the very beginning encouraged the public’s involvement in trying to locate Michelle Newell’s body,” said Sgt. John Eastham.
Eastham added that the group had been in contact with the sheriff’s office about its search efforts.
Singleton’s group decided to start in Irvine Park because Barr was allegedly seen cleaning out his car with bleach in that area following Newell’s disappearance.
Barr, 51, remains the Ramsey County sheriff’s office’s primary suspect despite the dismissal of murder charges against him in the case last week.
Without knowing the whereabouts of Newell’s body or where she was killed, Ramsey County prosecutors conceded that they didn’t have jurisdiction to press charges against Barr.
Charges could be filed against him at a later date, authorities said. Barr is being held in the Ramsey County jail on a separate charge.
Cellphone records pointed to Barr after Newell was first reported missing in late August. He and Newell allegedly exchanged a text message Aug. 29 — the last night she was seen at her Vadnais Heights apartment — about going somewhere four and a half miles away.
Phone records place Barr in North Dakota later that night. He remained in the area through at least Aug. 31. Newell was reportedly last spotted with him Aug. 30 on surveillance footage taken at a restaurant in Embden, N.D.
In the weeks that followed, Barr allegedly gave varying accounts to police informants about accidentally running over a woman after a dispute over methamphetamines.
Police reportedly spotted him cleaning out his car with bleach in St. Paul on Sept. 5. After evading police, he was arrested Sept. 20 while raking a yard in the 1200 block of Portland Avenue.
Volunteer searchers reportedly found items near railroad tracks in the Irvine Park area on Saturday that they turned over to the Ramsey County sheriff’s office, Singleton said. He said it’s possible that the items could be related to the case.
His group got involved in the search for Newell after hearing the sheriff’s office’s plea for help, Singleton added.
“We have people in our organization that monitor different areas of public concern and so we have been monitoring this case,” Singleton explained.
The group’s roughly 15 members have a variety of backgrounds, Singleton said. Some are licensed police officers while others have backgrounds in criminal justice, human rights and education, he said.
Singleton served as the director of Roseville’s Human Rights Commission for eight years and now serves as the president of the League of Minnesota Human Rights Commissions.
Operating in some capacity since 2013, Singleton said the community search group officially gained its nonprofit status in 2016.
When it takes on a case, members analyze the evidence made available to the public and decide how and where to best deploy its efforts.
Based on inconsistencies in Barr’s statements to informants, the group plans to check all the locations in the St. Paul area where he was seen following Newell’s disappearance, Singleton said. Then members will likely move on to the North Dakota area.
Though Barr’s last official residence was Lakeville, Singleton said police believe he had most recently been living in St. Paul and might have been homeless.
The group plans to meet at Irvine Park again this weekend to continue searching the area and is asking for more volunteers to join the search. They will meet at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Anyone who finds anything that may be related to the case or has information about what happened to Newell is asked to call the sheriff’s office at 651-266-7320. If you are placing the call from outside Ramsey County, call 911.