Search widens for Amish sisters missing in upstate New York

[August 15, 2014]  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two Amish sisters were abducted from their roadside farm stand near New York's border with Canada and a massive hunt to find them was under way on Thursday, the St. Lawrence County Sheriff's Office said.

Dozens of law enforcement officers, including U.S. Border Patrol agents and New York State Park Police, and volunteer firefighters manned road-checks and canvassed motorists after the girls vanished at 7:20 p.m Wednesday from their vegetable stand off Mount Alone Road in Oswegatchie, about 10 miles (16 km) from the Canada border, Sheriff's Deputy Shawn Wells said.

An Amber Alert was issued for the girls, who wore bonnets and aprons over dark blue dresses as their religion requires. They live in the rural area's Amish community and were identified as Fannie Miller, 12, and Delila Miller, 6.

Witnesses who flooded a police line with tips identified a white four-door sedan as a suspicious vehicle, a spokesman for the sheriff's department said.

"We've had a lot of reports of suspicious white vehicles but so far nothing has panned out," Deputy Wells said.

The Amish, who live throughout the United States, with the nation's largest community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, are known for their old world ways. Shunning electricity and other modern conveniences, they drive horse-drawn buggies.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; editing by Gunna Dickson)

[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.