As the search for miss­ing Diego Mar­tin res­i­dent De­rise­ford “Den­nis” Prince in­ten­si­fied in the Heights of Gua­napo yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives said it has brought them some re­lief.

Join­ing the ar­du­ous five-hour search in the North­ern Range, his sis­ters Denise and Deb­by Prince said de­spite emerg­ing emp­ty-hand­ed from the for­est, they will not give up on find­ing their broth­er.

The two were part of a 26-mem­ber search par­ty that showed up to look for the 43-year-old man, of Ma­hoghany Trace, Diego Mar­tin, who has been miss­ing since Sep­tem­ber 23.

The fa­ther of five re­port­ed­ly told rel­a­tives he was head­ing to get his hunt­ing camp ready ahead of the of­fi­cial start of the sea­son, which opens to­day.

Perched on a rock next to her sis­ter as they emerged from the for­est mud­dy, sticky and worn out, Denise Prince swal­lowed hard to keep tears at bay.

Ad­mit­ting they were dis­ap­point­ed, she whis­pered, “To­day’s search has brought me some clo­sure.”

Al­though one of the search par­ties found ev­i­dence that Den­nis had been in the for­est af­ter his ham­mer was found, she said, “When I left home, I was re­al­ly in high hopes. In my spir­it, I re­al­ly felt that we would have been able to get in there, ex­e­cute and bring out my broth­er, but it wasn’t suc­cess­ful.”

Thank­ing the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team led by Val­lence Ramb­harat for lead­ing the ef­fort on day sev­en yes­ter­day, she al­so cred­it­ed his “broth­ers” Miguel and Rudy for as­sist­ing in the search ef­fort.

She shared, “This is some­thing that Den­nis loved to do. He loved to go and fish. He loved to be alone some­times.”

Denise said be­ing out, wit­ness­ing the ef­fort by the search par­ties and sol­diers, was heart­en­ing, over­whelm­ing and en­cour­ag­ing.

“I ac­tu­al­ly got some clo­sure for my­self. I know for sure that my broth­er is a fight­er and I am not giv­ing up on him.”

The search will re­sume to­day.