Search teams fanned out through the dense woods of Dorchester, New Hampshire, and the sun was starting to set. Temperatures dropped below 40 degrees as volunteers scoured the area for a 2-year-old girl who had been missing for hours.

“It’s thick forests and swamps,” Sgt. Christopher McKee of New Hampshire Fish and Game said of the area.

That afternoon, on Oct. 10, a frantic mother called 911 to report that her toddler and the family’s two dogs were missing. They disappeared from the gated front yard around 3:15 p.m., after the dogs seemingly pushed through a spot where a wooden fence met a metal wire fence.

“The gate was secured, everything was locked,” McKee said. “Where the two fences meet wasn’t hooked together very well, and they were able to push through.”

McKee called for backup,

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