Original subtitles

Uh-huh.

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,

Happened.

It just didn't make sense

To not find anything.

Footprints, pieces of flesh, pieces of clothing.

Oh, it's-- it's troubling.

You know, I got, you know, members of my search and rescue unit

That aren't sleeping too well.

This is a small town in Idaho called Leadore.

It's remote. Your cell phone is going in and out.

You're on a gravel road at first,

But then it turns very rocky.

And when I say rocky, I mean big boulders.

you need to drive maybe five miles an hour

And that's safe.

And it's just real rocky. Takes a long time

To travel the short distance from the town of Leadore

To the campground.

once you leave the pavement, I think it's

A little over seven miles of pretty rough road.

Once you reach the campsite to where they were at,

The timber creek campground,

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.

It's a combination of

Willowy, swampy, creek bottoms,

Steep hillsides, some of 'em...

Sage brush, some of them timber.

Lot of rock.

They arrived at the campground

Late on the evening of July 9th, Thursday evening.

It was very late, it was dark.

They say they instantly went to bed.

From day one, law enforcement told us

That all of the people at the campsite

Were considered persons of interests

Just because they were simply there.

DeOrr Sr and Jessica Mitchell,

The parents of young DeOrr,

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.

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.

They had gone into Leadore, to the store,

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.

Jessica goes to the bathroom,

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,

And DeOrr supposedly says, "I ain't believing you caught those fish in the stream.

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.

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.

And Jessica tells me,

She keeps looking back over her shoulder

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.

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 so, they went back up there

And DeOrr looks at bob and says,

"where's little DeOrr?"

And bob says, "he was right here."

"where's little DeOrr?" and grandpa says, "he's right there."

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 say they panic.

They do a search of the immediate campground.

They look wherever they can.

craziness started. Everybody's...

I mean, they started yelling, they started searching.

They searched for about 15 to 20 minutes.

No sign of them.

Then it's decided they better call 911.

It's a remote area, you can't get cell phone service.

Jessica says miraculously she got a signal.

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.

Both of them were on the phone

With 911 at the same time.

You know, "my son's missing. Can you help us?"

And then it's just all been chaos from there.

Good evening, everyone.

You're in the right place, at the right time.

This is coast to cost am.

Tonight, we plunge once again,

Into the deep end of the paranormal pool.

Hundreds of people vanish from our national parks and forests.

Some right under the noses of parents or family members,

Under very unusual, but very similar circumstances.

Dave Paulides, welcome back to the program.

thanks for having me, 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,

Abduction is one of the least likely events, right?

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.

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.

that case is very reminiscent

Of a case that happened decades earlier

Just outside of Estes park, Colorado.

St. Malo is... Purely for Catholics,

It's one of the most visited placed in the Estes valley.

Up on the hill you have the statue of Christ.

Then right below that,

Is st. Catherine's chapel.

The story of St. Malo is really wonderful.

It goes back to a man named father Joseph Pascetti,

Who was a catholic priest.

One day, in 1916,

He came up to Tahosa Valley,

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,

And ended up standing on the rock

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,

At st. Catherine of Siena's chapel on the rock.

This was built 1935

As a chapel for camp kids for all those years.

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.

There was an easy, medium and hard hike.

And we'd have bonfire and lodge night,

Where we did skits and sang songs and...

The camaraderie was awesome.

It's August, it's a warm summer month.

Bobby Bizup was a ten-year-old camper.

He was partially deaf, wore a hearing aid.

And he liked to fish.

Well, on August 15th, at about 6:00 p.m.

Bobby was fishing in the small creek behind the retreat,

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.

As the counselor was walking back,

He turned behind him to look,

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 downhill on a very defined trail to the retreat.

During the height of the search,

The civil air patrol dropped 5,000 leaflets

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.

They found Bobby Bizup's remains.

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.

make no mistake, bobby could not have been lost.

Uphill, the meeker is an exhausting

And treacherous hiking spots.

Downhill to the retreat is dinner and an easy hike.

you mentioned that bobby is hearing impaired.

When you look at the big picture

In the number of cases that you have investigated,

The fact that he's impaired is almost as if that's one of the factors

On why they're targeted.

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.

A lot of facts didn't add up.

I just... I don't know.

It's a disappearance that has many scratching their heads.

Ten miles west of Leadore,

This campground was the last place

Anyone saw two-year-old DeOrr Kunz Jr.

a child that age,

75% of them are found within four tenths of a mile

Of the place last seen.

I mean, you look at the terrain and it's extremely rugged,

But they can go further than you think would be reasonable.

I sent a deputy up there,

Activated search and rescue.

the sheriff within a few hours

He had several searchers

Who were searching for this boy.

Wt find him.

We used dogs

To start with some ground searchers.

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.

As wide as we can get.

I mean, from hilltop to hilltop,

We gonna walk the main street high.

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.

You know, everyone said

Take five steps, look up, look down, look around.

Take five steps, look up, look down and around.

And that's what we do.

I mean, there's a lot of area up there.

There is people everywhere.

I mean, there was 200 plus searchers up there,

The day after he went missing on Saturday.

You know, there was people everywhere.

maybe he fell into the creek.

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 bear dens,

They check eagle nests.

Because an eagle could pick up 30 pounds.

Little DeOrr weighed approximately 27-28 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,

Or a bone, or something, you would think.

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.

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.

You know...

Same size as him.

It's possible.

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.

I can tell you from experience,

That these boots don't stay on real good.

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,

And he was clumsy anyway.

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.

The boots, his jacket...

Something would be found up there.

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.

Then you focus on people, who else were in the camp around at that time.

And so now they're coming down hard

On Jessica and DeOrr.

Try to play one against the other

To see if one's gonna tell.

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.

There wasn't any sort of red flag

That police were saying

That were pointing them toward one specific individual.

You know, I've had to grab her by the hand

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.

I didn't have anything to do with this."

DeOrr Sr. And Jessica Mitchell,

The parents of young DeOrr,

Came into our studios and looked upset.

They looked like they had been wearing the same clothing

That they were wearing when they were camping.

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.

Friday about...

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...

Yeah, we decided we were gonna go a little exploring.

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

To the point I figured out he was gone.

And the creek was empty?

The creek, there was nothing.

They had chainsaws, um, moving,

'cause every few feet it was blocked off.

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.

That means that there's a chance he's still alive.

And that's all I need is a chance to know that he's still alive.

And until I have him...

And closure, or him, nothing is stopping.

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.

And I don't know anybody that doesn't have a few people

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.

He's everything to us.

No, we're actually getting married next month.

Oh.

I saw the rings and didn't know if it was engagement, or...

engagement.

How long have you been together? Pop quiz.

- Almost five years. - -yeah.

Jessica's always been very, very reserved.

She does not like to let people see her emotionally.

Yeah, she is quiet.

And he is the one that more dynamic.

Maybe you might say probably to a fault.

You know, the 911 call that she made,

Everyone kept saying,

You know, why was it that she was so calm?

I am actually camping in leadore.

Just outside of leadore.

uh-huh.

um, my two-year-old son...

Um, we can't find him.

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.

She has two kids from her ex-husband.

And every other weekend they go to her house for the weekend.

Seemed like good kids. Still think they are good kids.

Um...

They're hurting... Bad.

Um...

I've held deorr while he's cried.

After we finished the interview,

I said, "well, I hope he's found today."

I hope you find him today."

And then, that night,

I saw them again at a vigil.

hear the god of all comfort, lord,

That you would comfort the heart of jessica and deorr

And trina, lord.

He could be very, very close.

He could be very far away.

We don't know, but we are covering all bases at this point.

There's not much to be said other than one small mistake as a parent.

You know, leaving him with an adult

That turns his head for a minute,

They move, they go.

Please, cherish and love each other.

'Cause it can be changed in just a split second.

And they said that they were leaving from the vigil

To go back up to the campsite

To continue to search.

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,

Gorgeous hike, beautiful, beautiful river.

This is really a wild area.

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

Elevation to get to the top of it.

But really remarkable country.

Yeah, okay...

Pretty much it was like almost a scramble.

So you're watching your feet,

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.

And that's when I saw the shoe.

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.

- Cheese. - -and what's your name?

Now give me that big smile with dimples.

Yeah!

It wasn't so much that he liked the raiders.

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.

My name is jocelyn atadero,

And my brother jaryd atadero went missing

In the colorado mountains in 1999.

As I was younger,

My dad would tell me that I would tell him

Certain memories I had of the hike.

As I got older, though,

I couldn't even tell you what I told him back then.

The only memory I have

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,

And I was hugging him.

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

You become part of the poudre canyon right there.

It was approximately a ten acre resort.

It was small, but, you know, we kept busy.

It was all about just being there.

It was one of those situations where

When you actually own a little store there...

We got up at six o'clock in the morning,

And we closed at eleven o'clock in the night.

Not only did it take care of us,

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,

We had people that worked for us,

It was jocelyn, jared and I.

We knew that we were the family.

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 miles from the resort itself.

Hey, allyn. Jocelyn wants to know...

several of the people I knew quite well.

So I gave permission for jocelyn to go.

Not knowing that jaryd would be saying,

"gee, dad. If she can go, why can't I go, too?"

He had his shoes on.

He hated tying his shoes.

So I didn't make him tie his shoes.

And he had like a beige color jacket.

Have fun, okay?

Don't get too close to the water.

I let jaryd go and I assumed that's where they were going.

Moderate. Ups, downs.

You could take a kid on it as long as you kept the kid in line

And hung onto him.

'cause there was some areas where the ledges were only 24 inches wide.

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.

If you're not in shape, it will take it out of you.

The church group went up to the big south trail.

They parked at the trail head,

And they started walking in on the trail.

They started to separate or spread out as they walked.

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,

Is running and playing and having a good time.

And I believe there was something

Ten to twenty minutes worth of time

That she lost track...

The adult realized, "I haven't seen 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.

And he asked if there were bears around.

And he's alone at this point in time.

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.

something is wrong.

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."

At that moment, I realized I had to go up the road.

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,

I just kept beating myself on the chest,

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...

Yelling for god to help me.

Please help me find my son, lord.

Just yelling and screaming.

I yelled and screamed in my truck

All the way up the road.

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 him "my little man."

I called every name I could,

Trying to get a response from him.

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."

we worked for solid eight days to begin with.

And that was 24 hours a day for eight days.

We're gonna keep visual contact at all time.

We did some night searching.

It was limited to a certain extent,

But we did always have people out in the field

To make noise,

So if somebody was out there now,

Jaryd would have heard it, he would have maybe

Responded or went to.

It was very intense. Very media friendly.

I mean, there was media, cnn...

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.

This is one of those situations where he disappeared.

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.

Not... Boy, that's a hard one.

No way. No way.

- I... - Absolutely no way.

Not all the way. I couldn't see him going...

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 struggle for gary and I to get there.

Very rough terrain.

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,

Search and rescue, or the volunteer searching people

Have already gone over certain areas,

Not once, not twice, but even dozens of times.

And then, the child is found there

Maybe a year, maybe a few years later.

When we had discovered the clothes

And went back up there,

With some of the people involved in the search,

You know, they were all scratching their heads.

Like, you know, they had all been around

The area.

My conclusion was an animal encounter

Right at the beginning.

And so, I'm not sure officially

What has really been released as a finality,

But it pretty much points to an animal encounter.

If a cat actually took him,

Which is what I believe, I believe happened.

The cat would have taken him some place

And buried him, and...

With all of the activity that was going on.

It probably would have left,

Because we would have scared it away,

And it would have came back later.

I hear constantly about a mountain lion.

Yet, when they tested jaryd's clothing,

There was no mountain lion hairs,

No dna, no blood, nothing on his clothing.

This is actually what's left of the cranium

After four different dna tests.

To think that I...

I mean, I have a hard time comprehending this.

But to think I'm actually sitting here holding my son...

This is what I have left of him.

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,

This jacket would not have survived a mountain lion attack, period.

These are the actual shoes.

These are jaryd's shoes that were found up on the mountain.

I've been told by experts

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

Is you would think

That if a mountain lion were dragging his body

Up a mountain,

And dragging him like this,

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,

Not only would you see marks,

But it would have pulled his shoes off way before

The area where they found him.

Jaryd's pants were found inside out.

When people first see this,

They get terrified, and go, "oh, my gosh!

What could have happened to him?"

There were birds and rodents and stuff

Literally pulling it apart,

Using the material as nesting.

So you see this material everywhere.

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

Jaryd was abducted in the boulder field

By the mountain lion.

The mountain lion grabbed him by his shoulder,

And went straight up the side of this mountain.

In one of the reports,

A person says,

"the reason why we didn't find any dna or blood"

Is because either he or something removed his clothing

Either jaryd or something removed his clothing before he was attacked.

And they go on to say that

"because there are so many hikers coming up,

That the mountain lion took jaryd's body 500 feet up the side of the cliff."

Well, wait a second.

I can buy all that.

But I can't buy this.

If something or someone took jaryd's clothing off before he was attacked,

That means his clothing wasn't with him

When this thing carried him up the mountain.

Jaryd's pants were found inside out.

Told by many mountain lion experts,

Mountain lions don't pull clothing off of you,

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.

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 blood, there's tissue,

There's indications of a struggle, right?

oh, absolutely.

And when the trackers come in with search and rescue,

They're looking for those indicators.

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.

Idaho falls, idaho,

And robert c. Walton.

I didn't play with him much.

He was just getting to the point where he

Could do something, you know.

He was over here quite a bit with jessica.

And he'd come over here and bum candy off me.

well...

Sure. I think a little.

I think everybody who was there has a little guilt about it.

You know?

Deorr and jessica say that

They decided to go camping that weekend

To kind of relive

Good memories for grandpa bob walton.

This was apparently a spot that in his earlier years

Bob walton had gone to several times.

Grandpa is on oxygen.

Some have said, has some memory issues.

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

That she could take care of him.

I don't know bob,

And I've never met issac.

But being the only other two people there,

Other than jessica and deorr...

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.

So we went to his idaho falls house

Over and over...

Hello.

...And over again.

Finally, early Monday morning,

He answered the door.

I'm nate eaton with east idaho news.

Yeah, I don't have any questions, I'm sorry.

You don't have anything you wanna say?

All right. Sorry to wake you up.

We just wanna see if you have anything to say about deorr missing.

- I don't. - You don't?

So he was just with you and the grandfather when he wandered away?

And then, you guys thought he was with the parents?

Yeah.

And the parents came back and he was gone?

Mm-hmm.

Okay, listen. I don't have... I don't... I can't...

I don't wanna answer anymore questions or anything.

Thank you, sir.

Strange thing about issac, he never searched for the boy.

I interviewed issac.

He's a strange duck.

And he does have a prior conviction of a sex crime.

It was reduced to a felony and a misdemeanor.

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.

Bob walton?

That's one of my good friends that I met him

When I lived over on chamberlain avenue.

I've known him for about five years or so.

He's always tried to help me out.

And I have done work for him in his yard.

He's always taking me on fishing trips every year, so...

I decided I wanted to go this year, too,

Because, you know, it's fun.

It was nice and clear.

I don't know. It was noisy 'cause of the creek.

But other than that, it was a wonderful day.

There wasn't really a cloud in the sky.

Not too much. Only that I was fishing

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.

so issac and jessica and deorr was...

Went to look for fish.

And the kid was there with me,

But I turned my head for a minute, I don't know

For how long, five or ten minutes, I don't know.

the grandfather claims he didn't go inside his trailer.

But I believe he did.

I believe he did go inside the trailer.

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.

And then here come deorr.

What were his words? "little 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.

No.

No, I was the last one to see the kid.

And it wasn't that much... Five-ten minutes.

They was looking for him themselves.

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.

It looks like your average campsite.

You've got a fire pit, a picnic table...

Very close to the creek we have heard so much about.

In fact, the creek is just here,

A few yards away.

Notice the terrain down to the water.

It's very steep.

I don't...

I really don't know what happened to little deorr.

In my heart or nothing else.

no, I don't.

I don't.

I really don't know what happened to the kid.

I don't know how much more you need.

It would be nice to get him back.

That's the only thing that I can say.

We stayed up there until about, you know, the...

The red cross left.

Till law enforcement told us we could go home, so...

and just coincidentally,

Above where deorr disappeared,

Above that campsite,

There is a large boulder field

Extending an extraordinary distance.

And that would be one of those area

That I'd give an intense look at.

according to oregon state police,

There are 41 missing children in oregon.

One of them is samuel boehlke.

He was eight-years-old when he vanished

At crater lake six-and-a-half years ago.

Crater lake is a magnificent place.

The first time somebody sees it

And the 100th time somebody sees it,

You say, "wow."

It is a top of a mountain.

It was blown off thousands of years ago,

It was a volcano caldera

The water is the most incredible blue that you can imagine.

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...

As a news guy,

This was a story that was equally frustrating.

Some of them just start off bad and 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.

Maybe some, uh...

Some form of autism on a scale.

While he is at crater lake,

They are near what's called the cleetwood cove overlook.

They got about quarter mile to the east

Of cleetwood cove trail.

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.

And there was a cyclist riding by

That had stopped to take a photo.

And sammy was getting ready,

Or looked like he was gonna throw a rock at the cyclist,

And the cyclist cautioned him.

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...

He ran the other direction.

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.

And so, time was really of the essence.

So, beginning at about six o'clock, Saturday night,

We started putting searchers into the field.

That first night we had up to about 25 searchers.

A combination of foot searchers,

Search dogs and tracking teams.

That's what we're basing this entire search on.

We're searching for a live sammy boehlke.

Perhaps burrowed in under some thick vegetation,

Or from a rock overhang.

We were really involved the next day after sammy went missing.

I remember it being a difficult search because of weather.

Two feet of snow came in the next day.

And the park, I think, was overwhelmed with

The people starting to come in.

They set up staging area,

And now they've got all of this assistance coming

To try to help and look.

we did a limited helicopter search

On Saturday morning.

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.

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.

Helicopters, search dogs...

The term we use is "last seen point",

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.

The ridge behind me

With the kind of dirt slope at the top of that ridge

Was where sammy was last seen by his father.

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.

We were wanting to send investigators.

And the parks often used their own staff,

Uh, initially.

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.

And within the national park service,

There's a director of the national parks,

And the headquarter is in washington do.

And then there are regions throughout the United States

Where they have responsibility over

A certain number of the parks.

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

From our government,

When it's easy to be accountable,

Especially in this day and age of technology.

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.

thank you.

In today's day and age,

We should be collecting as much information as we can,

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 went wrong in that previous search.

What would they have done differently.

A good record keeping of a search,

Whether it was successful or not,

Needs to be on hand,

So that the next time we go there,

The search leader can make informed decisions

And use resources very wisely.

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,

I could get my hands on a list of missing people

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...

Say, park authorities were open about

How many people are missing,

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,

We can go out better protected.

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,

But at least you should protect yourself.

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

It's a beautiful place, but it's not without tragedy.

The strongest theory? While, there's many...

The strongest theory is that he was in those woods somehow,

And he likely, in my opinion,

Got covered up by snow,

And then, maybe became victim of an animal later on.

I believe that when a child goes missing,

That you throw every resource you have at it initially.

And I would have liked to have seen that happen

With sammy that night.

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.

There's been a lot of people up there looking. A lot.

A lot of people.

Even after the search was done,

There's been people.

I think he would have been found if he was...

Don't you?

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.

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.

People, you know, owe...

You know, the parents did something to him.

Or it was an accident.

They said the boy was up there to use that as a ruse

To say that he's missing.

But he was never up there to begin with.

Oh, he was there.

I've seen him trying to play in the campfire.

He was playing with his dad.

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

Where any time, any sort of update on deorr is out,

They'll post the link and a hundred people will comment.

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.

Social media has its upside,

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.

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.

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,

And they're craving something.

They want some sort of nugget of news,

Or new information.

And when they don't get that, they speculate.

And then it spreads, and you can't control it.

Every time somebody would come around

Who was part of the media,

They would say, "what blank blank are they doing here?

Why are they here?"

And that bothered me as to why would they not want coverage.

I knew that they were offered nancy grace for an hour.

good morning america called them,

And they wouldn't go.

It can only help. It can't hurt.

And at this point,

Having his face plastered everywhere is how we're gonna find him.

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.

I'm not aware of any manual of how you're supposed to act

If your child goes missing.

You know, so, um...

It's extremely stressful for them.

And then, when you have people,

You know, trying to make assumptions

And judgments without a lot of information,

It's gotta be very difficult.

Hi, this is jessica.

Leave me a message and I'll get right back to you.

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."

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.

Why are they acting this way?

Are they concealing something?

It-- it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter who thinks you're a murderer.

It doesn't matter who thinks you did what to your son.

It matters that we need to find your son.

Basically I notified them in writing

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.

One of them didn't really care.

The other one said, "thanks for giving up on our son."

Brantley. Brantley.

- Come here. - Go see mom.

Oh! I have that boy.

What did you buy mommy?

What are you watching on youtube?

She's not a people person.

She's like... Oh, look.

Yeah? Are you gonna tell them, mm?

Anything for you.

Like I said... They just... They...

I don't know.

I think they cope with it different,

And maybe they have different ideas

Of what is a good idea to help find their son.

--Is that them?

That's deorr.

What the is going on?

Dude, I called...

you didn't do anything, I know.

You're fine.

- I just wanted to help. - you're fine.

She's just going through shit.

I'm edna, keith's mother.

I was visiting my parents in ritter, oregon,

And it was easter time, easter came early that year.

So there was snow on the grounds.

Patches of snow on the ground.

It was a cattle, cattle area.

And my parents were ranchers.

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 so I called the boys and the older two came,

And keith didn't.

And so I said, "where's your brother?"

He said, "oh, he went around the barn."

And so, we went to find him,

And he wasn't there.

We were able to start a search immediately for him.

It was long before search and rescue was organized

Like it is today,

And so they went within speaking distance of each other

So that they were able to communicate.

Everyone was just marvelous.

We felt that there was about 200 people there.

And they searched through the night.

I didn't know until much later

That he had gone through this herd of cattle.

But they found his footprints.

even as the crow flies,

His journey from his house

To where his tracks were found,

Is three miles.

And then, his body is found way over here.

Five miles away.

Eight miles in total.

He was stiff, too.

His little body couldn't move.

He was found face down in the snow, and...

His little face was scratched pretty bad when we found him.

It was at lunch time when he had disappeared.

And it was about seven o'clock the next morning

When he was found.

eight miles. That's as the crow flies.

It's impossible to walk out here as a crow would fly.

In a span of less than 24 hours,

You'd have to believe that this two-year-old

Covered perhaps as many as twelve miles.

As it was...

His clothing was found ripped,

And we figure it's likely from barbwire fences.

Either going through them or under them.

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.

Hat and coat beside him.

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,

"oh, yeah. I remember we looked for you.

Thank goodness you were found."

And I'd say, "oh, that's great and thank you for looking."

This is the cap that I wore.

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,

I had alongside me as I was laying prone on the ground.

I had that in my hand.

This here is my shirt that I had.

And then, as you can see, on my bib overalls,

You can see the tears

On them where I caught it in the fence,

Trying to go through the fence and stuff.

And it tore the...

And caught the... I got a tear in the back

Where the barbwires caught it.

And, uh...

Tore it.

Those are the clothes my mom kept

For all these years.

We just never gave up hope.

And he was found.

Although he'd suffered frostbite on his hands and feet,

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.

No nightmares about it at all.

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.

Someone asked me how I got those and I told them the cat had scratched me.

So, I had no recollection

Of what had happened to me.

It's the kind of baffling case that has you sit back and go,

Nothing that I can put my finger on

In a normal set of circumstances in the wilderness

Makes any sense to this case whatsoever.

It's something other.

Very quiet now.

You get all kinds of little motor noises coming out of there from him,

And he's just with his cars.

It's very quiet.

usually you're stepping on hot wheels,

Or legos, or something.

the whole house is the same way.

The whole house is very quiet now.

It's just... It's not anywhere at home.

You go with it day by day hoping you can get your life back.

Hoping he's okay, because

This ain't it.

This sucks.

little man.

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

Before I could leave the room.

And I miss those days.

A lot.

Um, what was it?

- About a month? - Three...

Yeah, it was like a month.

Three weeks to a month after he went missing.

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?

"We'll help you out."

And they said, "yeah, can you handle, like,

The forensic part of this?"

right off he showed you inside his truck.

It's an old beat up truck.

There was still the light, the dome light.

It was covered with fbi evidence tape.

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...

It gives us more of a direction to go in.

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

And they were actually... Her and my son were

Already up and out.

And they were just getting ready to start breakfast.

So we decided, okay, well, "bob, what's the plan?"

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."

Got our groceries and jessica went to the restroom.

I loaded little deorr in the truck with the groceries,

And she came out and we headed back up.

It's 45 minutes up.

And bob and issac were just coming back into camp,

'cause they were fishing down the creek right by where we were camping.

And jessica got little deorr out.

and we parked where that jeep is right now.

My grandpa was sitting in a chair right here.

And we had our double chair right about in here.

And I handed my grandpa the candy that we bought him.

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.

And he said, "yeah, he's fine."

He wants candy anyways."

And he was about ready due for a nap, anyway,

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.

Deorr and I stayed up by the creek and kinda just

Looked in the water and looked to see if we could see any fish.

I started getting my fishing gear ready,

'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 I thought, "god, this will be neat for him to see."

Jessica stayed at the creek,

And I walked up the bank

And got back up on the bank and went towards camp

And I yelled to bob where's little deorr.

I could hear voices up in the camping area.

And you can actually, where I'm standing right now,

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 I said, "bob, where's my son?"

And he said, "he headed up that way towards you guys."

I saw somebody walking

In between these trees right here.

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,

Like, maybe ten seconds.

And by then, I heard deorr yelling.

And I turned around and looked

Straight across from me,

And he was right there, saying...

"little man's gone. He's not in the campground.

We can't find him."

We came up this way,

Asking where my grandpa...

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,

Or playing with his shoes.

Once I knew that he was missing, that was like,

What really made me panic

Is, like, I don't want him to drown.

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.

A lot of what happened just doesn't make sense.

'Cause he would've... I think he would've screamed,

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

She had nothing to do with it, I had nothing to do with it.

'Cause we were with each other.

And I was searching the creek,

And in the water the whole time up until

Ray, um, stevens got here with search and rescue.

And he asked me to come up and sit in the campground.

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,

And go after somebody that we thought

Had something to do with it.

When your child goes missing,

You're a number one suspect.

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 hell any parent can think of.

And you get hooked up to a machine and...

The fact is...

It's hard. There was no problems,

But they called a...

Something pass.

Inconclusive pass.

You're scared to death, you're riled up, you're...

Scared for your child,

You're scared for your family. Your...

Your mind's going in a million different directions.

- 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.

Well, we still have a missing child.

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.

Working on a documentary

About a little kid that went missing in leadore.

You know about the case?

Everything I said, and no matter what I did,

You're dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.

I did not want...

I wanted the media to be on my son,

Not on me, not on jessica.

'Cause that doesn't help find him.

Everything I would say would be twisted.

Yeah, we were actually...

The whole reason why we haven't been on the news a lot,

And doing this stuff is because

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,

Our money that we have spent just going up there

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 know she didn't do anything.

I had one job and I still have that job.

Find that little boy.

He knew his name was deorr jay kunz.

And he knew his mama's name was jessica mitchell.

I just pray that if someone does see him,

You know, that they ask, "what is your name?"

Because I believe that he will still be able to tell you.

When individuals aren't found

On a search and rescue,

I can tell you that

It's something that you think about regularly.

You revisit in your mind.

There's times you go out and look yourself.

And some of those cases will haunt you forever.

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

To make sure that they feel that you haven't forgotten that.

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

I think I've ever done in my life,

Drive off this mountain.

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."

I don't comprehend

An animal getting...

It's too painful.

I mean, I visualize many times...

I visualize him walking down the trail

And some stupid cat jumps in...

I visualize that a lot of times.

But at the same time, I never believe it either.

But I still visualize it,

Because that was something that was constantly thrown at me.

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.

I think the natural inclination

For all parents and all relatives

Is they want closure.

It's an unknown what happened to these people.

And it extends far beyond just kids.

We're at 1600 cases, and with every month,

There's a new case that comes across my desk

That's an exact match for what we've talked about.

there's not going to be any one particular person

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.

Certainly authorities, national park authorities,

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.

When you look at some of these cases,

You have to consider

Possibilities with which we are really uncomfortable.

You know, it's a rational society.

We're uncomfortable thinking about what else could be out there.

But some of these situations are so unusual,

You have to think beyond the bounds of what's normal.

What's a normal explanation for this.

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.

It had been like three days.

So we knew it was probably not gonna be a good result.

Anyway, we were... To make a log story short,

Coming through some willows,

And it was all foggy, and the dogs were alerting.

But we could not come to any conclusion.

And all of a sudden,

My dog turned around and just let out

A real startled howl, you know.

It was scared.

And we turned around and here was this little toddler,

Walking out of the fog,

With just absolutely no clothes on at all.

And it scared all of us.

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.

We suspect because of just the way... Dirty and everything,

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.

The ultimate possibility

Is the most disturbing of all.

That it's been here as long as humans have been here.

Sometimes we can see the remains

And sometimes we never get an answer at all.

He had monster trucks

And semis.

I think the boots he was wearing were like sixes,

Or five-and-a-halves.

But every time he wore this,

He said he was super fast and he would run everywhere.

We deserve to know what happened.

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.

♪ Would you walk

♪ a thousand miles

♪ along cliffs

♪ cliffs made of shell

♪ would you abandon

♪ your father

♪ along, along, along along the trail ♪

♪ 'cause there's a road

♪ leads through mountains

♪ and that'll cut

♪ cut through you home

♪ and there's a lake

♪ carved by glaciers

♪ moving through stone

♪ moving through

♪ hey, you