Parents plead for missing boy
Family makes first appearance since search began June 4
PORTLAND – More than a week after 7-year-old Kyron Horman, of Portland, went missing, sobbing family members emerged on Friday to plead for his return.
Appearing before cameras and reporters, family members hugged one another before the boy’s father and stepfather spoke. It was the family’s first public appearance since Kyron went missing June 4 after attending a science fair at his Portland elementary school.
“People from around the nation have seen his picture,” said the boy’s father, Kaine Horman. “Please help us bring Kyron home.”
Authorities have said little about their work but have characterized it as both a search and an investigation.
The search consists of more than 200 people, some on horseback. Dogs and a National Guard helicopter also have been deployed.
Efforts have been held back at times because of constant rain and cloudy conditions in the area. The school is near the top of a hill surrounded by deep woods and several ravines.
Also at the lectern were Kyron’s mother, Desiree Young; her husband, Tony Young; and Kyron’s stepmother, Terri Moulton Horman.
The searchers were checking an area within a two-mile radius of the school, and Sgt. Diana Olsen of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office said they were expanding that search area on Friday. She declined to elaborate.
Also on Friday, a small Northern California police department investigated two tips that Kyron had been spotted with an elderly couple. Detective Steve Fahrney of the Yreka, Calif., police department, said he spoke to the couple, both in their 60s, and found the tips to be false.
“I spoke to them, they’re both locals, and we disproved that entirely,” Fahrney said. “The boy was not the one missing in Oregon.”