AURORA, Colo. -- For six hours Friday, dozens of volunteers knocked on doors and passed out fliers in hopes of turning up clues in the disappearance of an Aurora girl, but police said they were unlikely to turn up anything because investigators believe she is dead.

Aarone Thompson was reported missing Nov. 14 by her father, Aaron, who said the 6-year-old girl ran away that day because she was mad about a cookie. Police say they believe she was the victim of a homicide and may have been dead for up to 18 months.

No one has been charged and police have not found a body, but they say Thompson and his girlfriend, Shely Lowe, are "persons of interest."

Friday's search began at Rocky Ridge Park in Aurora at about 7 a.m. with a prayer.

About 75 people fanned out across Aarone's neighborhood on a warm, sunny day talking to her neighbors. The effort was organized by Letizia and Richard Berrelez, whose 5-year-old granddaughter Alie was abducted from her Englewood home and killed more than a decade ago.

The family and community "don't want the search to be exclusively in the back yard," Letizia Berrelez said, a reference to the weeklong police search with dogs, electronic scanners and shovels in the Thompson's home and yard.

Joanne Brady, who didn't know the girl or her family, said she figured this was a right way to spend the day after Thanksgiving.

"I felt the need to help out. I didn't work today and I just couldn't stay home with this going on, with this organized search going on," said Brady. "We need to do everything we can. If Aarone is out there, to bring that little girl home."

Interim Police Chief Terry Jones said the volunteer search was "commendable" but unlikely to develop any leads.

He repeated his criticism of the Thompson family's "unwillingness to assist in this investigation."

Jones said the family has given police "nothing but the cursory pieces of information or assistance that they provided at the onset of this investigation while we truly believed it was a missing child. And even that was very measured by the family."

Police have complained publicly that Thompson and Lowe have refused to be interviewed by investigators. A police detective even went to a press conference by family members to repeat the request out in the open, even though Thompson and Lowe were not there.

Family and friends have faulted police for giving up on finding the girl alive.

"Until you find a dead body, you've got to keep looking for a live child," said the Rev. Acen Phillips. Phillips has been meeting with the Thompson family.

Letizia Berrelez said she and her husband were staying neutral in the tense relationship between police and the family.

"Whether it goes back to the parents, we still want answers," she said. "The information might be damaging to the parents, but it still has to come out."

Richard Berrelez said he would encourage Thompson and Lowe to talk to police, but his focus was on finding Aarone.

Berrelez and his wife formed the Alie Foundation to teach children about protecting themselves from abduction and to provide search dogs to help law-enforcement agencies find missing children. Their granddaughter's killer has not been found.

Richard Berrelez said you can't find a missing child by grieving at home.

"You want to be able to get up in the morning and forgive yourself. You don't want to get up in the morning with guilt that I should have done something, I should have participated," said Berrelez.

He said Friday's effort included bloodhounds from Denver-based Rampart Search and Rescue. A Rampart spokesman did not immediately return a call.

Aaron Thompson and Shely Lowe did not participate in Friday's search. The searchers stopped by hundreds of homes, some of which Aurora police had undoubtedly visited already.

No police activity was visible at the home Friday other than an officer in a patrol car outside. Yellow police tape hung from trees or fenceposts at the corners of the front yard. Jones said investigators will continue to look for clues at the home, at least for another week.

The volunteers planned to return on Saturday from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.

"In this community, we have to help each other," said Mohammad Aslami, one of the searchers. "If we don't help each other, then the future's going to be very bad," he said.