HAMPTON, Va. — Jerrina Dixon faces her fears each day she looks for Codi Bigsby.
“I’m scared of water, woods, heights, speed!” she exclaimed.
She said the only thing that matters is bringing Codi home.
“When it was mentioned about Spider-Man flip flops, I was looking through the pictures and I’m like, ‘Hey, my son has those shoes. He has Spider-Man water shoes,'” Dixon said.
That image has stuck with her and pushed her to search for Codi all week.
She even gathered community members Thursday morning to help with search efforts led by W.A.T.E.R. Team Inc., a veteran-led nonprofit based in Newport News.
The group spent hours in the wooded area near Boo Williams Sportsplex. They searched for Codi and any clues that could lead them to him.
“We look at ease of entrance and how quickly you can disperse something and how quickly you can get out," said Joe Slabinski with W.A.T.E.R. Team, Inc.
Slabinski said it’s an extensive search going through wooded areas and small bodies of water across Hampton.
“It takes hours of looking at a map, remembering where we’ve been and how we’ve searched that piece of ground,” he said.
Slabinski said his team started searching for Codi last Tuesday. He said the most challenging part is not having much information on what actually happened to Codi. He said it won’t stop the group from searching and informing others about Codi's disappearance.
“That would be the worst tragedy of all of this is people just forgetting about him and he’s just deemed unfound and will not be found," he said. "Me, myself, I can’t accept that.”
W.A.T.E.R. Team, Inc. plans to return to the Boo Williams Sportsplex on Saturday to double-check the area. The group is also considering expanding its search efforts to Norfolk, parts o Newport News, and Yorktown once the group covers all of Hampton. Hampton Police said last week they are focusing their search efforts in Hampton.