CHRISTINA EICHELKRAUT / PVT J.J. Lynch and Andrew Parisi, two members of Pahrump's Volunteer Homeland Reserve Unit team, sort through a stack of call requests generated from tipsters giving information about the identity of a little girl who was videotaped being sexually assaulted. Advertisement

The search for the identity of the little girl who is seen on a videotape being brutally sexually assaulted has gone nationwide, and tips from people all over the country have been flooding the Nye County Sheriff's Office with phone calls.

To help filter through the information and develop leads, the Volunteer Homeland Reserve Unit, an organization made up entirely of retired law enforcement officers, has been called in.

The VHRU was contacted by Sheriff's Capt. Bill Becht Wednesday morning, and within a few hours eight members showed up and set up a work station at the Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office.

By yesterday morning, additional members from Las Vegas VHRU teams had come in to lend a greater hand.

When tips are called into the sheriff's office, the call generates a call request, a typed form giving the caller's name, contact information, and the tip being given.

The VHRU volunteers form teams of two members and go through the call requests, filtering though the inevitable crank calls that occasionally pop up.

Because the organization is made up entirely of retired law enforcement officers, with an average of at least 20 years experience per member, they are already trained in questioning people and discerning plausible leads.

Some of the leads are vague, stating only that the caller recognizes the girl or may have seen her.

In that case, a volunteer would call back and ask for more information.

If the information needs to be developed, a member would write a report and give it to the sheriff's office to be further investigated by detectives.

"We're not investigating this, but we're helping," Ted Farace, president and coordinator of the VHRU said.

By nine in the morning, stacks of call requests were already being sifted from all over the country.

And since investigators are still uncertain as to where the tape was made, each and every call is considered valuable.

"Any information at all -- whatever information you have -- can be valuable," Farace said.

If you have any information regarding the identity of the little girl or the perpetrator, contact the Nye County Sheriff's Office at 775-751-7000.