Search for boy, 8, frustrating

Joe Garner, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 30, 2006 at midnight

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CAÑON CITY - "Evan, Evan," the searchers yelled down into the canyon, hoping the Lakewood boy would answer, but the wind carried away their calls.

Moving to another vantage point at the top of the cliff, they peered into the crevices and megaphoned, "Evan . . . Evan."

The wind simply swirled Evan Thompson's name away again, and the canyon fell silent.

A third day of searching the rugged mountains of southern Colorado ended Monday with a previously located trail of shoeprints the only clue to the child's disappearance.

"People can just vanish in this country," said Jack Bales, a member of Fremont County Search and Rescue. "It's thick and bushy and rough. Once you get into the trees, you can get turned around so easily."

Eight-year-old Evan, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, was last seen Saturday morning when he began running and simply ran away from a remote site about 15 miles north of Cañon City. The boy, his foster mother and family friends were staying in camper trailers parked on a high mesa for the Memorial Day weekend.

Given Evan's erratic behavior and his delight in running free, Monday's search covered nine square miles of steep terrain, which also is habitat for cougars and bears just coming out of hibernation.

"It was really discouraging. You have to leave," Bales said, after loading up all-terrain vehicles. "The whole crew is discouraged we didn't find him."

More than 60 trackers were in the field Monday, and the search is to resume early today.

"It will be a challenge to get the same number of searchers (today) because people have to go back to work after the holiday weekend," said Steve Wilson, a spokesman for Evergreen-based Alpine Rescue Team. The Jefferson County team was among more than a dozen units from across Colorado that participated in Monday's search.

On Sunday, after combing the mesas and canyons for more than 24 hours, searchers found a fresh trail made by the boy's Spider-Man athletic shoes, with a distinctive spider pattern in the sole.

A military helicopter equipped with an infrared eye flew until 3 a.m. Monday, Wilson said.

Monday's search focused on the shoeprints, which were found more than three miles northwest of the campsite, and a fresh effort to uncover new clues, Wilson said.

The region is dotted with small caves where the child might have taken shelter.

"We're working on the assumption he's still out there and he wants to be found," Wilson said. "We will use whatever resources we can bring to bear to find a missing child. We will keep searching for a child until we are exhausted."

He said that children, even a suburban boy like Evan on his first camping trip, "are amazingly resilient in the wilderness. Survival is likely for two or three or four or more days in the wilderness."

Because of Evan's disorder, which requires medication, trackers said they had to anticipate that the boy might not react like other children.

"Any child in the wilderness is pretty unpredictable," Wilson said. "A lot of children are taught to go to one spot and stay there, but a child like Evan might not do that."

By Monday night, Evan had been without food, water or medication for 60 hours at about 7,260 feet elevation, under direct sun and blasting winds during much of the time.

Weekenders were caught up in the boy's ordeal, as well as searchers' patrols on Shelf Road, a dirt road that meanders through prime rock climbing and hiking terrain between Cañon City and Cripple Creek.

"I was saving my water and sandwiches, just in case," said Leslie Waldman, a Colorado Springs mother of five, who was camping for the holiday weekend with her husband, Randy.

"I called his name a lot of times after we ran into the searchers who told us he was missing. I told them I'd whistle three times if I found him, but I never did."

Evan's foster mother has asked that her name and the name of the Lakewood-area school he attends not be released, Wilson said.

His mother, Mary Thompson, told 9News that Evan's foster parents asked her to stay in the Denver area during the search.

"I got to just stay strong, so that my son can stay strong, and I hope they find him soon because I don't want him to spend another night outside," she said.

Thompson told 9News that her last supervised visit with Evan was Wednesday.

Evan is described as 4 feet, 4 inches tall and about 70 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes and was wearing a gray sweat suit when he ran away from the campsite.

Don Bendell, a Western writer and private tracker from Cañon City who located the body of Troy Tilley after a highly publicized search in May 1998, left the current search in anger Monday. He lambasted Fremont County Sheriff James Beicker and Chris Larson of the county search agency.

The colorful Bendell, dressed cowboy style with turquoise-and-silver cuffs, jangling spurs and a six-shooter on his right hip, said he "had been disrespected" because authorities would not let him search alone on horseback.

"They couldn't find Troy Tilley, and I could," Bendell said.

Authorities insisted on two persons working together as a matter of safety to reduce the risk that someone would be injured, detracting resources from the principal search, Wilson said.

garnerj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5421

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