Searchers try again in Malibu - Volunteers scour the Santa Monica Mountains for clues in the disappearance of student Donna Jou.

About 100 relatives and friends -- even a former girlfriend of the man police have named as their prime suspect in Jou's disappearance -- scattered throughout the Santa Monica mountains in Malibu looking for clues.

"It happened six months ago, but it feels like it was yesterday," said Nili Jou, the missing girl's mother. "I want to start the new year with my daughter beside me."

The search was organized by Mike Melson, who started his nonprofit Christian search group Trinity Search & Recovery earlier this year after seeing other volunteers participate in previous search efforts.

"I was embarrassed as a native Californian that people in Arkansas and Texas and North Carolina were coming to California to help find missing people," said Melson, whose group is based in Pleasanton, Calif. "We're a Christian organization, and I feel it's important that we get out of the pews and help our neighbors."

Los Angeles police detectives say Jou, a student at San Diego State University, met John Steven Burgess on the popular website Craigslist.com. The two were last seen together at Burgess' West Los Angeles home June 23.

Burgess, a registered sex offender who is serving a three-year prison sentence for not reporting his residence to authorities, has refused to talk to police about Jou's disappearance.

Authorities already unsuccessfully searched the mountains, a vast territory that detectives believe Burgess frequented. They did not join Saturday's search.

Others did, however, including Burgess' former girlfriend.

"I just felt when I lived with him, he did creepy things with me," said Missy Prusinski, 25, who also met Burgess on Craigslist and stayed with him for three weeks. "I just thought he was a creepy guy."

Melson said the extensive Santa Monica Mountains still could hold clues to Jou's whereabouts, even though another organized search launched by the Texas-based private search firm Equusearch came up empty three months ago.

"There are some folks out there that feel very cynical about a search like this," Melson told the crowd that gathered at Malibu Bluffs Park to help. "I think anyone here would do the same if our daughter was missing."