For five long days, hundreds of volunteers combed the trails near the Aviation Parkway, looking for any sign of a woman most had never met.
Some of the searchers were from Orl�ans, where the Wood family lived, and regularly travelled the route that Ardeth Wood had taken last Wednesday.
Others felt an inexplicable need to help with something, anything.
"I would have wanted someone to come out and help me," said Myra Aitkin-Mercredi, who lives in Orl�ans and has two daughters just a few years older than Ms. Wood.
But nobody complained, said Bev MacIntyre, 46, who was in the same search party, her jeans and work boots now coated in mud. Everybody did their bit, she said, no matter how young or old: "Bless their hearts."
This group of 70 people stopped looking at about three yesterday afternoon, when a body was found and the search called off.
Patsy Gu�rin, 29, said a police officer came and told everyone, "We're going to stop."
"She didn't say why, but that basically, 'You can draw your own conclusions,' " she said.
Despite the hope of finding Ms. Wood alive, a chance that kept the search party moving forward, some volunteers said the end wasn't a surprise.
"We were all expecting it, after five days," Ms. Gu�rin said. "But at the same time, we were hoping."
Jeffrey Prud'Homme stepped off a bus around 4 p.m. yesterday after his third day scouring the forests, searching the waters and canvassing the area near the Aviation Parkway.
The 30 or so searchers had been gone since 10:30 a.m., and when they arrived back at the command centre, a volunteer asked them to go to a tent where they could pick up a composite sketch of a "person of interest" to police.
What Mr. Prud'Homme didn't know was the body was found near Green's Creek a few hours earlier, where her bike was found the day before.
He was optimistic, still, after searching for three days.
"There was a lot of activity around the bike today, I guess there's just a feeling, you just don't know. I get the feeling they may have found something."
When he heard the sad ending to the gruelling search, the eyes of the man who had never met Ms. Wood welled up with tears, and he struggled to find words.
Asked why he was drawn to volunteer, Mr. Prud'Homme looked around, overwhelmed by the news.
"I don't know, just the thought of having someone you love (go missing), I can't imagine," he said.
Another man who got off the last search bus could only muster a few words. But they said it all.
"Well, it's sad," he said, as his eyes started to tear.