"[sombre instrumental music]" "[indistinct voices]" "[frog ribbiting]" "[indistinct dispatch over radio]" "[female 911 operator] [woman speaking] [operator] Uh-huh." "[woman speaking] [woman speaking] [operator speaking] [operator speaking] [operator speaking] [operator speaking]" "[Nate] News in Idaho falls is kinda slow." "Not a lot of big things happen here." "I had only been here a few weeks, when this case, the biggest story of my career," "[Frank] It just didn't make sense to not find anything." "You know, I got, you know, members of my search and rescue unit that aren't sleeping too well." "[Nate] This is a small town in Idaho called Leadore." "It's remote." "Your cell phone is going in and out." "And when I say rocky, I mean big boulders." "and that's safe." "And it's just real rocky." "Takes a long time to the campground." "[Steve] Once you leave the pavement, I think it's" "a little over seven miles of pretty rough road." "[Nate] Once you reach the campsite to where they were at, it kind of just dead ends." "And you get out and there's the campsite, there's the table, there's a fire pit." "Ten-twenty feet away, there's a steep hill that goes to the creek." "[Steve] It's a combination of willowy, swampy, creek bottoms," "[Nate] They arrived at the campground late on the eveningof July 9th, Thursday evening." "They say they instantly went to bed." "From day one, law enforcement told us were considered persons of interests just because they were simply there." "DeOrr Sr and Jessica Mitchell," "Grandpa, Jessica's grandpa," "And another man named Isaac Reinwand, who was a friend of Grandpa who apparently at the last minute decided to go camping with them." "[Jamie] It was dark when they got there." "DeOrr said they parked the truck parked the trailer in the Suburban." "Issac pitched his tent, they got Grandpa settled in the camp trailer, they slept in the back of the Suburban." "Got up the next morning, and then he realized how rural it was." "You know, they were basically at the end of the road." "Thought it was a pretty safe place." "You know?" "Cliffs kinda all the way around, not really any way for him to get out." "You know?" "The next morning, July 10th, Friday, they wake up, they're hanging around in the campsite." "because Jessica needed feminine products," "They went in there and they bought, you know, just that stuff and then some candy and stuff for the little man." "as the boys loaded up." "And they return to the campground." "So they get to the campground, this Isaac and the grandfather Bob said, "We got some fish."" "And he showed the fish to DeOrr," "I can't believe it." "Show me where you got 'em."" "So Jessica and DeOrr with this Issac go towards the creek, which is maybe 100 feet away." "[Nate] They say to little DeOrr," ""Do you wanna come with us?"" "According to law enforcement, little DeOrr follows them for a point, but then turns around and goes back." "The parents continue on assuming that Grandpa is watching DeOrr." "to make sure the little boy is not following them." "And when she was confident he wasn't following, they went to the two spots along the creek where they supposedly caught the fish." "[Kelsey] They went down there probably 10-15 minutes, and then they saw minnows." "And they were gonna go back to camp and get little man, because he loves fish." "He loves bugs..." "stuff like that." "and DeOrr looks at Bob and says," ""Where's little DeOrr?"" "And Bob says, "He was right here."" "Of course he's not there." "Grandfather claims he didn't go inside his trailer." "But I believe he did." "Police say that Issac Reinwand at this time is down at the creek, fishing." "They do a search of the immediate campground." "[Kelsey] Craziness started." "Everybody's..." "I mean, they started yelling, they started searching." "No sign of them." "Then it's decided they better call 911." "Jessica says miraculously she got a signal." "[Jessica over phone] Um, my two-year-old son... um, we can't find him." "DeOrr hops into his truck, goes down the road to see if he can get better service." "with 911 at the same time." "You know, "My son's missing." "Can you help us?"" "[radio jockey] Good evening, everyone." "You're in the right place, at the right time." "Tonight, we plunge once again, into the deep end of the paranormal pool." "Hundreds of people vanish from our national parks and forests." "under very unusual, but very similar circumstances." "Dave Paulides, welcome back to the program." "[David] Thanks for having me, George." "[George] All right, Dave, I wanna jump right into this." "DeOrr Kunz, two-years-old." "I mean, you were a cop." "If you were investigating this case," "[David] I would probably say yes." "And the reason for that is, is that the family was in a campground, deep into the mountains." "There was one very rocky, rough road going in, and the same road out." "If someone would have driven into that area, you would think that the family would have heard him." "And if they would've walked up to the campsite, they for sure would have been seen." "[George] It's like, it's like in so many of the other cases." "It's like he's plucked out of the sky." "It's like just snatched out of the sky." "[David] That case is very reminiscent of a case that happened decades earlier just outside of Estes Park, Colorado." "[boy humming]" "[continues humming]" "St. Malo is..." "Purely for Catholics, it's one of the most visited placed in the Estes Valley." "The story of St. Malo is really wonderful." "It goes back to a man named Father Joseph Pascetti," "One day, in 1916," "and he and two or three others were camping on the slopes of Mount Meeker, when they saw a meteor in the sky." "They got up, wandered toward the meteor hoping they'd found where it came down," "where St. Catherine's Chapel is located." "And Father Pascetti said this would be a good place for a boys' camp, and the rest is history." "I'm the caretaker here," "This was built 1935" "Lots of camp kids came here." "And 1973, I came up here and became a camp counselor at camp St. Malo, and loved the outdoors." "Every week, the kids would go on hikes." "where we did skits and sang songs and..." "The camaraderie was awesome." "[man] It's August, it's a warm summer month." "Bobby Bizup was a ten-year-old camper." "And he liked to fish." "when a counselor approached him and told him it was dinner time." "Bobby acknowledged the counselor" "and started to follow him downhill towards the retreat." "and Bobby was gone." "And that's when the search started." "St. Malo Retreat and the summer camp is right on the border of Rocky Mountain National Park." "Within four days there were 400 searches from the National Park Service, local sheriffs, volunteers and SAR experts." "Officials were difficult to understand how Bobby could get lost because it's straight downhillon a very defined trailto the retreat." "over 200 square miles, which were telling Bobby that his parents loved him and they needed him." "On August 25th, the formal search was terminated after a nine day effort." "Now, there were three counselors that were looking for Bobby that entire time, and the following year they returned." "And one day, they walked up the side of Mount Meeker, right through the boulder field, about 2,000 feet up from the retreat, and saw a hearing aid, and bits of clothing." "And they found him in a ravine, up on the face of Mount Meeker, which is right here, along Cabin Creek." "He was in a ravine that they had searched at least three times the year before." "Uphill, the Meeker is an exhausting and treacherous hiking spots." "Downhill to the retreat is dinner and an easy hike." "[George] You mentioned that Bobby is hearing impaired." "When you look at the big picture in the number of cases that you have investigated," "[David] George, that's an interesting point." "It seems as though an abnormal number of these people disappear with some type of physical impairment, or genetic deficiency." "So Bobby's case happened August 15th, 1958." "These go back decades." "But even today it's happening as we speak." "It's the third night an Idaho Falls family is spending without their son." "More than 10,000 man hours have been put into trying to find a missing toddler in Lemhi County." "[man] A lot of facts didn't add up." "The day before-- this campground was the last place anyone saw two-year-old DeOrr Kunz Jr." "[Steve] A child that age," "I mean, you look at the terrainand it's extremely rugged, but they can go further thanyou think would be reasonable." "[Frank] The sheriff within a few hours he had several searchers who were searching for this boy." "To start with, uh..." "Helicopter came in." "I mean, the had flare which is forward looking infrared for night." "This is all these guys do." "This type of stuff, search and rescue." "I wanna spread everybody out in one long chain." "I mean, from hilltop to hilltop," "I wanna cover every little nook and cranny, cover every log..." "Anything that looks turned over, check it out." "I was 90 to 100 miles an hour driving around people, you know, just acting like a maniac to get up there." "I thought it's gonna be really foolish when I get up there and get out of the car and he's right there." "You know, and I got out of the car and that wasn't what happened." "take five steps, look up, look down, look around." "And that's what we do." "I mean, there's a lot of area up there." "I mean, there was 200 plus searchers up there," "You know, there was people everywhere." "That creek, Search and rescue crews went through on their hands and feet, with poles, literally crawling through that creek." "Nothing." "I suppose they check wolf dens, they check eagle nests." "Because an eagle could pick up 30 pounds." "There are bears in the area." "There's bobcats, there's mountain lions." "There's other animals." "But there would be some sort of clothing," "There's no clothing, there's no flesh or anything that would indicate that an animal got him." "There's no blood, there's nothing there." "[interviewer speaking]" "You know, you think you would find something." "You're talking about the trace you're looking for, or maybe a boot came off." "Well, they were camouflage cowboy boots." "You know, the thing of it is, everything there at that time of the year's that tall." "Same size as him." "[Jamie] This little boot is similar..." "Actually this is the exact boot, maybe just a couple sizes bigger, that DeOrr was wearing the day he went missing." "My grandson kicks them off in the car seat every time we put him in there." "They were too big for him, so they were sloppy," "When he would walk, he'd just walk clumsily." "Somebody picked him up, the cowboy boot must have fallen off his feet." "So if these were the boots that DeOrr was wearing that day and they were too big, certainly if an animal would have grabbed him, even if somebody else had abducted him," "I think we would have found... something." "We went for three or four days without any sleep." "And I got to the point where" "I was an emotional mess." "You gotta have a twofold investigation." "You gotta think the search, that's good." "Then you can't find anything, then you start focusing on the parents." "on Jessica and DeOrr." "Try to play one against the other" "Law enforcement continually told us that all of the individuals were being cooperative." "They were all questioned individually, and together." "And they were working with them." "that police were saying that were pointing them toward one specific individual." "and go for walks with her and say," ""You just have to promise me, if there's anything that's going on, you gotta talk to me, you gotta tell me."" "You know, and those conversations have been very clear and straightforward, and she's come back and said, "Mom, I don't know why you're doing this to me." "[Nate]DeOrr Sr. and Jessica Mitchell, the parents of young DeOrr, came into our studios and looked upset." "that they were wearing when they were camping." "A hoodie..." "She was carrying DeOrr's blanket.It was dirty, it was ragged, it hadn't been washed." "And a teddy bear." "One of his little toys." "We sat down, and as I do with any interview, especially with a distraught parent, you wanna show compassion and kindness." "But you also wanna find out if they might have anything to do with his disappearance." "All right, DeOrr, so take us back..." "Was it Friday?" "I'm not sure what day it is today." "Today's Monday." "It was Friday." "Yeah." "It was Friday." "2:26 is when I..." "Was it 2:26?" "It was 2:36 when I called." "2:36 is when she called and I was in the truck hauling down to the road, trying to get service." "'Cause I didn't think one bar would get it." "We... we were just..." "He was gonna be good with Grandpa by the campfire." "We weren't probably more than 15" "Ten minutes." "Fifty yards away in ten minutes by the time I'd seen him" "[Nate] And the creek was empty?" "The creek, there was nothing." "They had chainsaws, um, moving," "Blocked down and blocked off from nature." "From tress, from branches, from debris." "I mean, there was a lot of places that he could be, and that's what they wanted to eliminate." "That was my biggest concern." "'Cause that's where we were by." "And that's all I need is a chance to know that he's still alive." "and closure, or him, nothing is stopping." "Nothing is..." "[Nate] Do you know if somebody had a vendetta against you?" "I mean, I'm sure you've gone through your mind..." "We've been wreaking our brains." "We have been wreaking our brains." "that either will like you or hate you." "But not to harm a two-year-old, almost three-year-old." "Not to harm us this way." "Especially knowing how much he means to us." "[DeOrr] No, we're actually getting married next month." "I saw the rings and didn't know if it was engagement, or..." "[Nate] How long have you been together?" "Pop quiz." "She does not like to let people see her emotionally." "[Frank] Yeah, she is quiet." "And he is the one that more dynamic." "everyone kept saying, you know, why was it that she was so calm?" "[Jessica] Um, my two-year-old son..." "[Frank] I know they need money." "I know they owe a lot of money in Montpelier," "A lot of money for childcare." "And I know she had her tubes tied since, so she could never have it reversed, never have another child." "I think she did that because she didn't want children." "But there's evidence that she was..." "Uh, had a hard time dealing with kids." "She would leave her kid at daycare, and leave him unattended many times." "I've talked to many people that brought that up." "And every other weekend they go to her house for the weekend." "Seemed like good kids." "Still think they are good kids." "I hope you find him today."" "And then, that night," "I saw them again at a vigil." "[man] Hear the God of all comfort, Lord, that you would comfort the heart of Jessica and DeOrr" "He could be very, very close." "We don't know, but we are covering all bases at this point." "they move, they go." "Please, cherish and love each other." "[Nate] And they said that they were leaving from the vigil to go back up to the campsite to continue to search." "[Rob] Basically what we would do is pick an area were we would like to hike and explore." "And so when we went along Big South Trail for the first time," "And the reason why Gary and I so much enjoy hiking together." "And then it was just coincidental that we wound up in a rock field and said, you know, "Let's hike up the ridge."" "And I think it's about 2,000 foot hike up" "But really remarkable country." "[Gareth] Yeah, okay..." "Pretty much it was like almost a scramble." "and basically you're just focused a few feet in front of you, your own feet, so you don't twist an ankle or something." "It was like somebody had just took their foot right out of it, you know." "It was so fresh, I thought like" "I would see a kid standing in front of me." "Jaryd." "Now give me that big smile with dimples." "Yeah!" "He loved silver and black." "And when he saw the Raiders on TV one day," "He's like, "Dad, there's a silver and black team."" "I said, "Yeah, there is." "That's my team, Dad."" "And I'm like, "Okay."" "So he's a Raiders fan." "in the Colorado Mountains in 1999." "my dad would tell me that I would tell him" "As I got older, though," "I couldn't even tell you what I told him back then." "of the resort, or that whole time period, is after Jaryd had disappeared." "We were back at the resort in a room..." "I couldn't even tell you where, and my dad was kneeling on the ground crying," "[Allyn] I was attracted to Poudre Canyon, because, you know, the trees were beautiful." "And you know there's stuff out there," "but it's just interesting because" "[Butch] It was approximately a ten acre resort." "It was small, but, you know, we kept busy." "It was one of those situations where" "We got up at six o'clock in the morning, and we closed at eleven o'clockin the night." "but how many people get the opportunity to be next to their kids 24/7?" "And that's what I really enjoyed about the canyon." "There were only three of us." "I mean, even though had a family at the resort, it was Jocelyn, Jared and I." "The group decided they wanted to go to the trout farm, the fishery, right around the corner." "Maybe about a mile and a half,two milesfrom the resort itself." "Hey, Allyn." "Jocelyn wants to know..." "[Allyn] Several of the people I knew quite well." "Not knowing that Jaryd would be saying," ""Gee, Dad." "If she can go, why can't I go, too?"" "He hated tying his shoes." "So I didn't make him tie his shoes." "And he had like a beige color jacket." "I let Jaryd go and I assumed that's where they were going." "[interviewer speaking]" "Moderate." "Ups, downs." "And you had loose shell all the way down to the river, so..." "And then there was rock fields." "Being a moderate trail, it was pretty tough." "The church group went up to the Big South Trail." "They parked at the trail head, and they started walking in on the trail." "Some people faster and slower." "One adult with Jaryd's sister and Jaryd, seemed to be out ahead of everybody else." "As Jaryd, as a three-year-old," "And I believe there was something ten to twenty minutes worth of time that she lost track..." "The adult realized, "I haven'tseen him for a while."" "And when they went up to try to find him, they kept going thinking they would catch up, and they didn't catch up." "It was reported that he spoke to some fishermen." "At least they have an idea, you know, roughly where he was last seen." "I myself was cleaning some things, and decided to sit down and watch a football game." "And I must have been watching for maybe 15 or 20 minutes, and I slowly nodded off." "[woman] Something is wrong." "[Allyn] And they're like, "Allyn, we have to talk to you."" ""Sure." "What's going on?" And they said," ""We had a problem with Jaryd."" ""What happened?" "Did he fall?" "Did he scrape his knee?" "Did he break his arm?" "What happened?"" "And what they actually said to me was," ""He's okay." "We just can't find him."" "We got in our cars." "I was in my truck." "And I'm like, "Well, where are we going?"" "They said it's about..." "I can't remember." "Sixteen, fifteen, sixteen miles up the road." "I'm like, "Are you serious?"" "How'd you guys get that far up the road?" "And the entire way up the road, like someone had stabbed me with a sword." "Just beating my chest and yelling." "Dad's sorry, little man." "Just yelling Jaryd's name." "Sorry I let you go..." "Please help me find my son, Lord." "Just yelling and screaming." "I yelled and screamed in my truck" "I don't even know how I got there." "I drove that road probably twice as fast as anyone should even drive that road." "Jaryd!" "Jaryd!" "And as I ran up that trail," "I yelled and yelled, and screamed his name, screamed, "Jaryd."" "Screamed "Jay-Rod." I called him Jay-Rod." "I called every name I could," "And I listened." "And I'm not sure exactly how far we got up on the trail, but I stopped and I realized, "Oh, my God." "This is gonna be..." "This is not what I thought it was." "I just can't get up here and find him."" "[Bill] We worked for solid eight days to begin with." "We did some night searching." "It was limited to a certain extent, but we did always have people out in the field" "so if somebody was out there now, responded or went to." "[Jayne] It was very intense." "Very media friendly." "So it became a real nationwide episode." "So, that put a lot of stress on us and a lot of stress on the dogs." "It was a situation to where... people lost hope." "Like, we're not gonna find him, you know." "We had hiked the area couple of times before, and we had talked about the mystery of Jaryd Atadero." "Whether he had been swept downstream, abducted by a mountain lion, or of there had been something more sinister than that." "This time, we decided to go off trail." "And we just walked right into it." "And we knew right away that it was probably Jaryd Atadero's clothes." "[interviewer speaking]" "No way." "No way." "I..." "Absolutely no way." "He lived in a cabin" "He's a three-year-old." "There's no way..." "There's no way that would happen." "Yeah." "I mean, it was a strugglefor Gary and I to get there." "Very rough terrain." "[wind howling]" "[Bill] There were K-9 alerts that would go that direction." "Now, whether they were right at the scree field, or before it, but they were at least alerting up that hill." "That's why I'm reasonably certain we searched it, because we..." "When a dog alerts like that, we're thinking, "Okay, something must be up there." "Let's get up there and search for it."" "But we never found anything." "I think whatever's happening is beyond our understanding." "In a lot of these cases, have already gone over certain areas, ot once, not twice, but even dozens of times." "And then, the child is found there maybe a year, maybe a few years later." "and went back up there, with some of the people involved in the search," "Like, you know, they had all been around" "My conclusion was an animal encounter" "but it pretty much points to an animal encounter." "The cat would have taken him some place and buried him, and..." "With all of the activity that was going on." "because we would have scared it away, and it would have came back later." "[Allyn] I hear constantly about a mountain lion." "Yet, when they tested Jaryd's clothing, o DNA, no blood, nothing on his clothing." "This is actually what's left of the cranium after four different DNA tests." "I mean, I have a hard time comprehending this." "But to think I'm actually sitting here holding my son..." "The clothing was sent to the CBI." "The clothing was tested by the CBI." "No mountain lion hairs, no blood, nothing on any of the articles of clothing." "If a mountain lion would have attacked him, they go for the stomach area." "This jacket would have been in shreds." "I've been told by several people, mountain lion experts in the woods," "These are the actual shoes." "These are Jaryd's shoes that were found up on the mountain." "that they do not look like they've been in the wilderness for three-and-a-half years." "The other thing that's interesting about the shoes that if a mountain lion were dragging his body" "you would see marks on his shoes." "And there are no marks here." "You would think if he was dragging him this way up the mountain, ot only would you see marks, the area where they found him." "Jaryd's pants were found inside out." "When people first see this," "What could have happened to him?"" "There were birds and rodents and stuff literally pulling it apart, using the material as nesting." "So it's not because something attacked him and ripped his leg off." "This is all due to rodents and birds." "We were relieve in one sense, that the mystery had been solved." "My sense of it is that" "The mountain lion grabbed him by his shoulder, a person says," ""The reason why we didn't findany DNA or blood or anything on Jaryd's clothing, is because either he or something removed his clothing before he was attacked."" "that the mountain lion took Jaryd's body 500 feet up the side of the cliff."" "I can buy all that." "If something or someone took Jaryd's clothing off before he was attacked, when this thing carried him up the mountain." "Jaryd's pants were found inside out." "Told by many mountain lion experts, especially your pants and leave them there on the mountain inside out." "There's just too much..." "There are too many questions that don't have answers." "And I feel strongly, my family and I feel strongly that there is someone out there who knows a little bit more than we know." "[man 1] You know, when I get questioned about this from people who've heard our interviews, people will stick to that it's a bear, it's a mountain lion, it's some kind of an animal." "But I mean, they leave clues, there's evidence." "there's indications of a struggle, right?" "And when the trackers come in with search and rescue," "There's gonna be a massive scene there of blood, hair, drag marks and things, as the animal would be taking you away." "That's one of the points that we vet before we even look into one of these cases." "And in the last 100 years, there's only been 14 fatal mountain lion attacks in the United States and Canada." "[interviewer speaking] and Robert C. Walton." "[interviewer speaking]" "[Robert] I didn't play with him much." "could do something, you know." "And he'd come over here and bum candy off me." "[interviewer speaking]" "Sure." "I think a little." "But..." "I think everybody who was there has a little guilt about it." "You know?" "they decided to go camping that weekend good memories for Grandpa Bob Walton." "This was apparently a spot that in his earlier years" "Bob Walton had gone to several times." "Law enforcement, since day one, have continually ruled out Grandpa, because of his health issues, and they don't think he was in the right frame of mind to do anything like this." "With my dad being ill," "I asked Jessica to go up there, to be with him in the event that something happened to my father" "I don't know Bob," "But being the only other two people there," "If he was taken from that campground, they have to be involved somehow." "Since DeOrr Kunz disappeared, many have had questions about the friend who was with the family that day at the campsite." "His name is Issac Reinwand." "over and over..." "Hello." "...and over again." "I'm Nate Eaton with East Idaho News." "You don't have anything you wanna say?" "All right." "Sorry to wake you up." "I don't." "You don't?" "I have no comment." "So he was just with you and the grandfather when he wandered away?" "Mm-hmm." "And then, you guys thought he was with the parents?" "Yeah." "And the parents came back and he was gone?" "I don't wanna answer anymore questions or anything." "Thank you, sir." "Strange thing about Issac, he never searched for the boy." "He's a strange duck." "And he does have a prior conviction of a sex crime." "And the strange thing is the morning after the little boy was missing, he got up and said to several people," ""It's the best night's rest I had in a long time."" "The parents told me that they had never met Issac until this camping trip." "That Grandpa said, "Oh, I'm gonna bring along a friend." "We're gonna fish together." "We'll have a fun weekend away together."" "And the parents were okay with that." "[interviewer speaking]" "That's one of my good friends that I met him" "I've known him for about five years or so." "And I have done work for him in his yard." "He's always taking me on fishing trips every year, so... because, you know, it's fun." "It was nice and clear." "Hot..." "I don't know." "It was noisy 'cause of the creek." "But other than that, it was a wonderful day." "[interviewer speaking]" "and Issac was watching me, and he got all excited after I'd caught a couple." "He was gonna get his pole out." "I think we caught four or five." "About that time, here come Jess and DeOrr back." "I don't know." "I think it was about noon, maybe a little after." "They had to go down to get some gas for the truck." "And they came back." "[Robert]So Issac and Jessica and DeOrr was... went to look for fish." "for how long, five or ten minutes, I don't know." "[Frank] The grandfather claims he didn't go inside his trailer." "But I believe he did." "I showed them a couple of fishing holes." "I was going down to another fishing hole." "I was probably down there half an hour, an hour, and..." "I looked to the right where they were fishing." "And I noticed their fishing poles laying there on the ground, and they weren't there." "[Robert] And then here come DeOrr." "And I said, "He's right there." You know." "And then, I see my friend Bob upon the ridge and I walked up to him and asked him what was going on." "And he said, "DeOrr is missing."" "So we all started looking for him." "[interviewer speaking]" "[Robert] No." "No, I was the last one to see the kid." "And it wasn't that much..." "Five-ten minutes." "Everyone's gonna have to have someone to blame here." "You know, and unfortunately the last person to see him is gonna be the one that has the blame, you know." "I mean, there was four people in that campground that day." "If everyone was that worried about it, the baby should have went with the parents." "He chose not to, 'cause he wanted to stay with my dad." "He wanted candy." "This is the campsite where DeOrr and his family were camping." "You've got a fire pit, a picnic table..." "In fact, the creek is just here, a few yards away." "Notice the terrain down to the water." "[interviewer speaking]" "I really don't know what happened to little DeOrr." "In my heart or nothing else." "[interviewer speaking]" "[Robert] No, I don't." "It would be nice to get him back." "That's the only thing that I can say." "Till law enforcement told us we could go home, so..." "[Nate] And just coincidentally, above where DeOrr disappeared, above that campsite, there is a large boulder field" "And that would be one of those area that I'd give an intense look at." "there are 41 missing children in Oregon." "He was eight-years-old when he vanished at Crater Lake six-and-a-half years ago." "[Tim] Crater Lake is a magnificent place." "The first time somebody sees it and the 100th time somebody sees it, you say, "Wow."" "It was blown off thousands of years ago," "The water is the most incredible blue that you can imagine." "[Lyle] Knock out beautiful." "I've been there dozens of times." "Maybe a hundred times." "It's one of the most foreign places that you can really imagine on Earth." "Every trip that I've gone there, it's also a different kind of a mood." "Three, two, one." "The best news about today's search and rescue effort is that the weather... this was a story that was equally frustrating." "Some of them just start off badand they get worse." "The way I understand Sammy's disappearance is that he was visiting Crater Lake with his dad." "Staying at Diamond Lake Resort." "He's got some developmental problems." "Some form of autism on a scale." "While he is at Crater Lake, they are near what's called the Cleetwood Cove overlook." "And they parked, and he kind of went running off." "At some point Sammy crosses the road, and he's up this a scree hill of kind of some rock cutout where the road is there." "that had stopped to take a photo." "or looked like he was gonna throw a rock at the cyclist," "And dad was yelling for Sammy to come back." "And whether Sammy was just being a boy, or if there was something to do with his condition also..." "His dad ran up the hill after him, and he had vanished." "It gets very, very cold at Crater Lake this time of the year." "I mean, it easily gets down below freezing at night." "we started putting searchers into the field." "A combination of foot searchers," "That's what we're basing this entire search on." "We're searching for a live Sammy Boehlke." "We were really involved the next day after Sammy went missing." "Two feet of snow came in the next day." "And the park, I think, was overwhelmed with" "They set up staging area, and now they've got all of this assistance coming [man] We did a limited helicopter search" "And unfortunately, the weather has been conspiring against us." "And after about six short passes over the search area, the weather socked in, the clouds came in, the rains started." "And we weren't able to fly anymore that day." "[Lyle]I believe the number that comes to mind was they had 174 people up there from different search and rescue agencies." "That included search and rescue units from neighboring counties." "and that's our reference spot usually from where we start our search." "Well, this is the area where" "Sammy was last seen on Saturday." "was where Sammy was last seen by his father." "[man] It appears that a National Park is within a county, it really is its very own sovereign place." "And so, we received a phone call that there was a missing child there." "And we were very anxious to send searchers." "And the parks often used their own staff," "They are sometimes an island unto themselves that it's somewhat exclusive jurisdiction." "We are over 400 National Parks in the United States, which is something that we're very proud of." "The National Park Service is a unit within the Department of the Interior." "there's a Director of the National Parks, and the headquarter is in Washington DC." "where they have responsibility over a certain number of the parks." "[Interviewer speaking]" "I don't recall." "I would have..." "I would have regular briefings on different things that were going on." "There were significant national crisis where the Secretary of Interior should know." "There's a whole agency of 23,000 people that were more involved in the day to day activity of any given person, any given incident, or any given park." "As somebody who's been an avidly outdoor person all my life, it just is unthinkable to me that there's no accountability when it's easy to be accountable," "Sometimes records are kept, and sometimes records are not kept." "There's no requirement for the Federal Government to keep records of people who go missing on Federal lands." "[Jennings] In today's day and age, and putting it in a database that's open, that's not guarded by anyone." "If we want to help find the next lost person, we can learn a lot by what went right in that previous search," "What would they have done differently." "A good record keeping of a search, eeds to be on hand, so that the next time we go there, the search leader can make informed decisions" "In the work I do with missing airplanes, we're always trying to look at that missing airplane list." "When I was sheriff of Klamath County, in a matter of minutes." "If you have areas that you don't even know there's missing people." "If you have specific jurisdictions that don't have that data, it makes it really difficult going back to re-investigate when more information comes." "The reality is that if... from national parks and public parks and wilderness areas, then those of us who are going to shove our fear and still go out there," "That's what I think authorities should do." "I think they should come clean and say, "Here's all the information." "Now you know." "We don't know what's going on," "[Lyle] It's obviously an unsolved mystery." "Um, it's one of those things that... you kind of carry it in the back of your mind every time that you go and visit Crater Lake." "I mean, it's a tourist destination." "It's a happy place to be." "But you go up there and you do think" "got covered up by snow, and then, maybe became victim of an animal later on." "I believe that when a child goes missing," "And I would have liked to have seen that happen" "It is the end of month one, and the search for two-year-old DeOrr Kunz Jr." "continues." "Many believe DeOrr isn't on that mountain." "Search and Rescue and all the townspeople, everybody went out there." "Everybody went out there." "A lot of people." "Even after the search was done," "I think he would have been found if he was..." "Several people have mentioned other people that live in Lemhi County." "There's a woman that runs a restaurant there." "Some people have said that she may have been involved." "[Frank] The mother and father knew that the baby was dead, so they said, "Please help us."" "They paid her $1,000 to dispose of the body." "Police have cleared her." "There's..." "I mean, there's so many theories out there." "You know, the parents did something to him." "They said the boy was up there to use that as a ruse" "But he was never up there to begin with." "Oh, he was there." "I've seen him trying to play in the campfire." "Several people have said there's sex offenders that live in town, and that maybe they knew this little boy was up there, so they concocted this plan to go up there and take him." "We're thinking more like somebody kidnapped him." "They'd followed him back to the door and caught me when I wasn't looking and snatched him." "I've heard everything from "Big Foot took DeOrr,"" "to maybe a trucker picked him up." "to maybe he's a child sex slave in Canada." "A lot of Facebook groups have been set up" "they'll post the link anda hundred people will comment." "[woman] There's probably a dozen different" "Facebook pages out there that people have started." "And there's a lot of it that's positive support for the family, but there's a lot of it that's just condemning." "Called them murderers, said they're neglectful parents." "That they should never have kids." "but terrible downside, as well." "People jumping to conclusions, spreading rumors." "And that just complicates the grief so much more." "The parents are having to defend themselves at the same time as they're trying to grieve, and trying to wrap their arms around the fact that their child is missing." "[man] The family's been accused of drug use, and of sleeping with certain people." "Everything from their looks, to their demeanor, to how they speak." "[Frank]In fact, I even told them, stay off social media." "I said, you want the broadcast media, the print media to be on your side." "Whatever comes out, the social media may misinterpret that and say some things that are cruel or not true." "But don't even pay attention to them." "And it may be that people have become fixated with this case," "They want some sort of nugget of news, or new information." "And when they don't get that, they speculate." "[birds chirping]" "[Frank] Every time somebody would come around who was part of the media, they would say, "What blank blank are they doing here?" "I knew that they were offered Nancy Gracefor an hour." "[Jamie] Good Morning America called them, and they wouldn't go." "It can only help." "It can't hurt." "And at this point," "You know, every time somebody goes to Walmart, wherever they're at, or get out of their car," "I want DeOrr's face to be in their mind." "[door creaking]" "I'm not aware of any manual of how you're supposed to act if your child goes missing." "You know, so, um... you know, trying to make assumptions" "it's gotta be very difficult." "[over answering machine] Hi, this is Jessica." "Leave me a message and I'll get right back to you." "[beep]" "I asked DeOrr why she was freaking out on me when you told me it was okay." "He says, "I told Jess and she doesn't like the idea."" "[Frank] This is the strangest case that I've worked." "Everybody else, they plead for television coverage." "They plead for radio coverage, newspaper coverage." "They plead for this." "That's what's so strange." "Are they concealing something?" "It" " It doesn't matter." "It doesn't matter who thinks you did what to your son." "It matters that we need to find your son." "that because they didn't want to cooperate with the broadcast media or print media that I was gonna back out of the case and I withdrew my $20,000 offer of a reward." "What did you buy mommy?" "What are you watching on YouTube?" "She's not a people person." "Yeah?" "Are you gonna tell them, mm?" "Like I said..." "They just..." "They..." "I don't know." "and maybe they have different ideas of what is a good idea to help find their son." "[bell ringing] -[man] Is that them?" "What the [bleep] is going on?" "[DeOrr speaking]" "[Kelsey] Dude, I called..." "[DeOrr] You didn't do anything, I know." "She's just going through shit." "[DeOrr speaking]" "[shutter closing] [clock ticking]" "[clock chiming] [man speaking]" "[Edna] I'm Edna, Keith's mother." "Patches of snow on the ground." "It was a cattle, cattle area." "And the neighbors were pretty much also." "He was a happy child, a very happy child." "He and his older brothers had gone to the barn to see a new calf." "And it was lunch time." "and Keith didn't." "And so I said, "Where's your brother?"" "And so, we went to find him," "It was long before Search and Rescue was organized like it is today, but they knew how to search." "Everyone was just marvelous." "We felt that there was about 200 people there." "that he had gone through this herd of cattle." "[Les] Even as the crow flies, his journey from his house is three miles." "And then, his body is found way over here." "[Edna] He was stiff, too." "His little body couldn't move." "He was found face down in the snow, and... his little face was scratchedpretty bad when we found him." "It was at lunch time when he had disappeared." "And it was aboutnseven o'clock the next morning when he was found." "It's impossible to walk out here as a crow would fly." "covered perhaps as many as twelve miles." "[panting]" "As it was... his clothing was found ripped, and we figure it's likely from barbwire fences." "And even with a full moon tonight," "I can't see anything going through this bush." "So if I'm a two-year-old child, and I've got to walk through this, or crawl through this," "I get to this time of night..." "I can't see Keith going anywhere." "I can't go anywhere." "How a two-year-old could travel the topography I'm traveling now..." "Little shoes and it was freezing temperatures." "Even if he was a kid full of energy." "This is roughly the area the searchers found him." "His father was about 100 yards that way." "And he's found here." "Face down in the snow." "Searcher finds him." "Father one, maybe 200 yards away." "Runs over, picks him up, and he's alive." "Over the years, in the Ritter area, when we'd go visit there, someone would come visit and say," "Thank goodness you were found."" "And I'd say, "Oh, that's great and thank you for looking."" "It's got little earmuffs on 'em." "This is my little cap." "And this here's one of my shoes that I had on." "This is my jacket that I was carrying with me." "I took it off for whatever reason, and I was carrying my cap in my coat, in my hand," "This here is my shirt that I had." "[clock chiming]" "And then, as you can see, on my bib overalls, on them where I caught it in the fence, trying to go through the fence and stuff." "And it tore the... where the barbwires caught it." "And, uh..." "And he was found." "we were just fortunate that he was found when he was." "We never made a big issue of him being lost, because we didn't want to frighten him, and to make him afraid of dark, or to be frightened." "I felt he'd gone through that." "I don't recall at all anything about it." "They asked me what happened and I told them I didn't know." "I didn't know what happened and they asked me." "I had quite a few scratches on my face and hands." "of what had happened to me." "in a normal set of circumstances in the wilderness makes any sense to this case whatsoever." "It's something other." "[DeOrr] Very quiet now." "'Cause that's not usual for him." "It's very quiet." "[Jessica] Usually you're stepping on Hot Wheels, or Legos, or something." "The whole house is very quiet now." "It's just..." "It's not anywhere at home." "Hoping he's okay, because" "[Jessica laughing]" "Everyday I was happy, because I got to spend it with him." "I could go to work and take him to work with me and still have that time with him." "And then, we'd come home and make dinner and give him his bath, and put jammies on, and watch a little TV and play, and then read him a story or sing him a song to put him to sleep," "and give him about ten million hugs" "And I miss those days." "A lot." "[interviewer speaking]" "Um, what was it?" "Yeah, it was like a month." "Is when they brought the FBI in." "The FBI originally called Lemhi County and said," ""We heard about this case." "Do you guys need any assistance?" "And they said, "Yeah, can you handle, like," "[Nate] Right off he showed youinside his truck." "It's an old beat up truck." "There was still the light, the dome light." "That's one thing they hadn't taped down." "So he did let them swab their truck." "We were told that a report should come out within six to eight weeks." "And we're at the eight week mark now, with still no answers." "They're coming up with any sort of theory, or any sort of hypothesis as to what could have happened with DeOrr Kunz." "We want them to come back and say we have reason to believe because of this and this that he was abducted." "So we're now..." "We're looking at tis individual." "We're looking here..." "We're doing..." "Some people are, like, they're afraid of the FBI." "No, we are not." "I have nothing to hide." "I have no-- I didn't do anything wrong." "Bob's friend Issac stayed in his own tent." "Bob stayed in the camper." "Jessica, I and little DeOrr stayed in Bob's Suburban." "I got out of the Suburban that morning already up and out." "And they were just getting ready to start breakfast." "Him and Issac were gonna go fishing." "And I said we're gonna go down to Leadore, get a few things and we'll come back up." "And he says, "Well, be back here by 1:00 if you can."" "I loaded little DeOrr in the truck with the groceries, and she came out and we headed back up." "It's 45 minutes up." "'cause they were fishing down the creek right by where we were camping." "[Jessica] And we parked wherethat jeep is right now." "And we had our double chair right about in here." "Issac and my grandpa were talking about how they went fishing in the creek and caught fish." "Just down... up in there." "And we decided that we were gonna go up and look to see if there was fish in the creek." "After were decided that we're gonna go up there," "I asked my grandpa if it was okay if we could leave little man with him." "He wants candy anyways."" "and you could tell he was getting pretty tired." "Se we were gonna leave him with Bob, instead of making him walk and all that." "So we headed up this road right here." "Right about where that smaller tree is." "We stopped and noticed that little man was following us." "So DeOrr asked him," ""Do you wanna go with us, or do you wanna stay with Grandpa Bob?"" "And he said, "No, yeah."" "And turned around and started walking back towards my grandpa." "So we realized he was gonna go back to camp with my grandpa," "I figured he was with my grandpa, he was fine." "And we walked up to the creek, and Issac said, "Right here, right here is where we were fishing and caught fish."" "And he turned around and walked back towards this way." "looked in the water and looked to see if we could see any fish." "'cause I figured this is kind of a good spot to fish." "And there was one spot that had minnows in it." "And they were just stuck there." "They couldn't get out from the low level." "and got back up on the bank and went towards camp" "I could hear voices up in the camping area." "you can actually see the table, the picnic table that's in our campground." "But I could hear DeOrr's voice." "I just couldn't make out what he was saying." "I hollered to him, "Where's my son?"" "And he says, "I don't know."" "And he said, "He headed up that way towards you guys."" "I saw somebody walking" "Realized that it was Issac, with the fishing stuff in his hand." "And he was walking towards the creek." "And then, by that time," "I looked back at the creek for a split," "And by then, I heard DeOrr yelling." "And I turned around and looked straight across from me, and he was right there, saying..." "We can't find him."" "We came up this way," "Where he had gone last time he saw him." "And he saw him right next to that pine tree, kinda sitting down." "He said he was either playing with the dirt," "what really made me panic is, like, I don't want him to drown." "[DeOrr]He's not in the camper,he's not right in this area." "And she started searching by the creek, and I'm up and around." "We search for about 20 minutes or so." "And I didn't hear him." "I didn't..." "We were panicking, we didn't hear him." "So we decided we needed to call, to summon Search and Rescue." "or tried to say, "Mama."" "Within the hour of him being going missing, it rained and then it got really hot." "So he would've taken his jacket off." "And we didn't find anything." "That place was scoured." "The only thing that I'm sure of is that Jessica that day was with me." "She was with me and I was with her." "So the only thing that I'm sure of is that" "'Cause we were with each other." "And I was searching the creek," "Ray, um, Stevens got here with Search and Rescue." "That as a parent is one of the hardest things when you have all these professionals telling you stay at the camp, and they have reasonings for that." "Because if they find..." "If they found my son, then they gotta go looking for me." "And..." "Or they didn't want us to react, you know, had something to do with it." "When your child goes missing," "It's sad, but it's true." "You got grieving parents that are already riled up, and you know, you've gone through literally the most living hellany parent can think of." "The fact is..." "It's hard." "There was no problems, but they called a..." "Something pass." "scared for your child, you're scared for your family." "Your..." "And nothing is ever..." "Nothing makes sense." "But you don't get any answers out of any of those directions you're going in." "And so, you get hooked up to a machine like that, and everybody's thinks, "Hook 'em up to a polygraph." Go ahead." "Go right on ahead." "I have nothing to hide." "But just know that they're not very useful." "You know, I believe he's still out there." "We just haven't found him yet." "You know, everybody wants an answer." "Hopefully some day we'll come up with one." "[man 1 speaking] [man 2] Working on a documentary" "[man 1 speaking] [man 2] You know about the case?" "[man 1 speaking] [interviewer speaking]" "you're dammed if you do, dammed if you don't." "I did not want..." "I wanted the media to be on my son, ot on me, not on Jessica." "'Cause that doesn't help find him." "Yeah, we were actually..." "The whole reason why we haven't been on the news a lot, we're actually out there." "Like, I don't even know how many times we..." "How many hours, how many days, how many weekends, how much money, to search for him." "But all these people saying their hearsay stuff, and saying that, you know, there's something wrong, because we're not on the news and this and this and this." "No, we're doing something for our son." "You're right." "I didn't wanna spend all this time in front of the public every day and pet the pride of everybody to let them know that I didn't do anything." "Because I know I didn't do anything." "I had one job and I still have that job." "He knew his name was DeOrr Jay Kunz." "And he knew his mama's name was Jessica Mitchell." "you know, that they ask, "What is your name?"" "Because I believe that hewill still be able to tell you." "[man] When individuals aren't found on a Search and Rescue," "I can tell you that it's something that you think about regularly." "There's times you go out and look yourself." "[tooting]" "Throughout my tenure as a sheriff, there was nothing more important" "than keeping communication open with the family." "There's only one case in their mind that still exists." "And it makes it incredibly important" "That somebody's still looking at it." "I don't come up here that often." "I feel guilty, because I feel like, you know, what if my son were up here at the time, you know," "I didn't know what happened, where he was." "I felt guilty not coming up here at the same time." "It was just too painful." "It was hard comprehending that that was it." "I was going down the mountain and I was going home without my son.It was the hardest thing" "The Big South Trail, right here." "I've never been up here with snow on the trail." "When you come up here and you see the beauty and you think," ""Did my son lose his life up here?"" "I think to myself," ""Gee, Jaryd, you sure picked a beautiful place to hang out."" "[sighs deeply] [voice breaking] I don't comprehend an animal getting..." "I mean, I visualize many times..." "But at the same time, I never believe it either." "because that was something that was constantly thrown at me." "[man] I can also imagine that it haunts them for the rest of their lives." "Just the weird circumstances, and the fact that they will probably never have an answer to what really happened." "[Nate] I think the natural inclination is they want closure." "It's an unknown what happened to these people." "And it extends far beyond just kids." "that's an exact match for what we've talked about." "that can shed light onto a lot of the phenomenon that's going on." "We're talking about a very large, even a worldwide collective of information here." "law enforcement authorities..." "They often have their fingers tapped onto the knowledge that we need." "But whether or not we can acquire it from them is another story." "you have to consider possibilities with which we are really uncomfortable." "We're uncomfortable thinking about what else could be out there." "you have to think beyond the bounds of what's normal." "What's a normal explanation for this." "[woman] I think one of the most impressive was a search in South Dakota." "It was for a little toddler that had wandered away." "And this was..." "I forget, it was January, February." "And we could not get any clues on the little toddler." "So we knew it was probably not gonna be a good result." "coming through some willows, and it was all foggy, and the dogs were alerting." "But we could not come to any conclusion." "my dog turned around and just let out a real startled howl, you know." "And we turned around and here was this little toddler, with just absolutely no clothes on at all." "I mean, the other handler and I both went "Whoa!"" "You know, just startled us, too." "Just like the little thing appeared out of nowhere out of the mist." "that probably she had been with an animal." "Had curled up with a coyote, or..." "We don't know for sure." "And we'll never know." "is the most disturbing of all." "That it's been here as long as humans have been here." "He had monster trucks and semis." "I think the boots he was wearing were like sixes, or five-and-a-halves." "he said he was super fast and he would run everywhere." "But that little boy at least deserves to come home or have closure." "I owe at least that much to my little boy, is to at least give him his life back, or his closure." "[acoustic guitar music playing]" "♪ Would you walk ♪" "♪ A thousand miles ♪" "♪ Would you abandon ♪" "♪ 'Cause there's a road ♪" "♪ Leads through mountains ♪" "♪ And that'll cut ♪" "♪ And there's a lake ♪" "♪ Moving through stone ♪" "♪ Moving through ♪" "♪ Hey, you ♪"