Can Facebook help find the missing?

(CBS) - For almost a year now, three old high school friends have tapped into the power and community of Facebook to try to solve the mysterious disappearance of a close friend.

PICTURES: Lisa Stone Missing

Tina Wiley, Tammye Markle and Joni Shannon - the self-dubbed "Facebook Detectives" - say the social networking site, as well as some sleuthing of their own, has helped generate a number of leads and clues as they try to find their friend Lisa Stone.

The Facebook Detectives say the information gathered through their Facebook investigation is helping the police investigation.

Back in the 1970s, Tammye, Joni, Tina and Lisa were all high kicking cheerleaders on the Mesquite High School Drill Team in Mesquite, Texas. Although their lives took them in different directions, a high school reunion in 2009 reunited them. They kept in touch with Facebook and not a day passed without Lisa posting, the friends say. They tagged each other in funny high school photos, posted inspirational quotations - Joel Osteen was Lisa's favorite - and usually over shared about their lives, which was why it was peculiar when Lisa's status updates abruptly came to a halt in June 2010.

"Lisa was there one day chatting and e-mailing and calling us, and the next day gone," a disheartened Wiley told "48 Hours Mystery". With no sign of Lisa on Facebook or at her home in Dallas, Tina, Tammye and Joni began pounding the virtual pavement by dissecting Lisa's Facebook wall.

"Lisa gave us clues, herself," Wiley said referring to Lisa's final posts which revealed how she had been spending her time. The ladies also began chipping away at Lisa's list of almost 200 Facebook friends by sending them private messages and posting on their walls.

"We found friends of Lisa's that we didn't even know from other circles who gave us advice, told us about the years in between that we hadn't been in touch with Lisa," Wiley said. But what really touched the ladies were the donations and clues that came in from people who didn't know Lisa.

"Half of the funds came from strangers who didn't even know her story, who just learned her story through Facebook," Wiley said. The new community also provided "incredible moral support" by attending vigils and a recent dedication ceremony in which a park bench was dedicated to Lisa. Wiley credits Facebook with getting the media's attention.

"Dallas Observer found out about us through Facebook and wrote an article. That's how this whole thing got started."

The friends have created a nonprofit group, "Looking for Lisa". They hope to empower the friends and family of missing persons to find their loved ones. "We knew nothing when we started this, it's been a huge learning process and we want to be able to share those types of experiences," Tammye Markle said.

In addition to advising people how to organize a search team and what steps to take if the police won't listen, the training relies heavily on using the power of Facebook as an investigative tool. "Facebook blows everything away," Wiley said. "If I put something on, I have a few hundred friends and it snowballs."

It certainly did in Lisa Stone's case. 

Ashley Mastronardi is an associate producer for "48 Hours Mystery."

For more on Lisa Stone, watch "48 Hours Mystery: The Facebook Detectives" this Saturday at 10/9 c.