Officials using sonar to search water for missing 11-year-old
Colorado Springs authorities are using sonar equipment to search bodies of water near Lorson Ranch for Gannon Stauch, an 11-year-old boy who hasn’t been seen in more than a week, sheriff’s officialssaid.
Four horse-mounted El Paso County sheriff’s deputies, two dog teams and 52 volunteers and other law enforcement officers also searched for Gannon on Thursday, said Jackie Kirby, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.
As part of the search, county officials are using a remotely operated vehicle with sonar to search for Gannon in undisclosed bodies of water near Lorson Ranch, Kirby said.
She declined to say which ponds, lakes or streams are being searched, but Big Johnson Reservoir is in the area.
Kirby originally had said a dive team was searching the water for the boy but later said a decision was made to use sonar equipment instead.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Southeast Region also contributed to the search by deploying an underwater drone that used sonar and video to search for underwater evidence, the agency said on Twitter.
The searches near Lorson Ranch have been in response to recommendations from the public and as a result of detectives following leads, Kirby said.
She didn’t offer any further context about the tips or why the water searches were necessary.
El Paso sheriff’s Sgt. Deborah Mynatt said heavy equipment has been brought to the water search areas to break through the ice after an extreme cold spell froze the ice.
“The weather will not deter us from the search,” Mynatt said during a televised news conference.
The sheriff’s crime laboratory continues to make trips to Gannon’s home as new leads make that necessary, she said. Deputies have removed several pieces of evidence from the home, but she declined to elaborate about the items or their significance.
“It’s a big, large puzzle, and we’re trying to put the pieces together,” Mynatt said.
Sheriff’s investigators are working on one of two 12-hour shifts on the missing child search so that it is going 24 hours per day, Kirbysaid.
In response to requests from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, deputies from Fremont and Douglas counties have sent out search and rescue teams to look for Gannon in certain areas based on tips, Mynatt said.
The National Guard and the FBI are collaborating in the search for the boy, she said.
“It’s the sheriff office’s top priority to bring
Gannon home safely,” Kirby said. “It’s still a missing/endangered child case that hasn’t turned criminal.”
Gannon first was reported as a runaway, but El Paso County sheriff’s officials later categorized him as missing/endangered.
His stepmother reported that the last time she saw Gannon was on the afternoon of Jan. 27 when he went to a friend’s house.
A neighbor, 49-year-old Roderrick Drayton, said his home surveillance video showed a female relative and Gannon getting into a truck that Monday morning.
When the woman returned home about four hours later, only she got out of the truck and went inside, Drayton told The Denver Post during an interview Tuesday.
District Attorney Dan May has visited the Stauch home, and the crime lab will be there for the next few days “as evidence is collected and processed,” the sheriff’s office said Wednesday on Facebook.
The sheriff’s office has not said whether it has any persons of interest or suspects in the case.