Authorities Call Off Search For Missing Autistic Boy

An intense search for a 4-year-old autistic boy who wandered from home wearing just a diaper was called off Tuesday evening, although authorities still hoped the sound of his favorite “Barney” music tape would draw the tot from any hiding place.

One sheriff’s deputy remained behind, playing the tape featuring the purple dinosaur from the popular children’s TV show.

“I can’t stand the thought of just walking away, but there are not a lot of places left to look,” Linn County Sheriff David Burright said.

Elijah “Eli” Kelt apparently walked away from his rural Linn County home shortly after 8 a.m. Monday when his mother had briefly left him alone. The house is located about 100 yards from the Willamette River and is surrounded by wetlands and thick brush.

The two-day search covered five or six square miles on foot and horseback, most of it more than once. Rescuers also searched by air and in the water.

“There’s water everywhere here, and Eli liked the water and had no fear of it whatsoever,” Burright said earlier in the day. “That concerns us.”

More than 100 searchers from throughout the mid-Willamette Valley had found no sign of the boy. A dog trained to track scents in the water was working with divers.

On Monday, two dogs picked up a scent on land and headed in the same direction, but the scent dropped off, Burright said.

An Oregon Air National Guard helicopter used its heat-sensing equipment to look for the boy on Monday, but turned up only animals.

Rescuers were not discounting the possibility the boy was abducted, but were focusing their search around the area.

“Right now all the evidence points to him being in this area somewhere,” Burright said. Complicating the search is the boy’s autism.

“We’re working off the assumption that due to Eli’s medical condition that he’s most likely hiding from the searchers,” Burright said.

The boy is 3 feet tall, weighs about 45 pounds, and has blond hair and blue eyes.