WESTMINSTER, Colo. — Authorities searched fields and along highways in suburban Denver Monday for signs of a 10-year-old girl who has been missing since leaving for school Friday and whose backpack may have been found miles away.

The effort to find fifth-grader Jessica Ridgeway also focused on the area around the home in Westminster, where she lives with her mother, and a neighborhood 6 miles to the north, where the backpack believed to belong to her was found Sunday.