TOWNSEND, Mass. (AP) – Townsend police are making a last-ditch appeal for more information from the anonymous author of two letters about the 1977 disappearance of a 13-year-old girl.

Townsend Police Chief Erving Marshall on Monday asked the letter writer – or anyone with information about the disappearance of Deborah Ann Quimby – to come forward.

Police have spent several weeks searching in and around Walker Pond, where Quimby was last seen 27 years ago, but Marshall said the search will be called off if no more information surfaces within the next few days.

Searchers have been using heavy equipment in mud at the north side of the pond, off Turnpike Road. The two anonymous letters directed police to the site.

Marshall said that without more specific information, any further work at the site would be “futile.”

“We are in the last area of the pond that we expect to search and are comfortable that we have thoroughly covered that portion of the pond where we felt we would find results,” he said.

The current investigation is the second at the pond in as many years.

AP-ES-07-19-04 1357EDT