THE Durango HERALD
Members of a task force, accompanied by a uniformed La Plata County Sheriff’s deputy, started going door to door looking for anyone who knows or knows something about Dylan, Durango Police Department Lt. Ray Shupe said.
Friends to hold vigil tonight in Bayfield for missing teen
Search in lake put on hold; law enforcement going door to door
The on-scene search for 13-year-old Dylan Redwine, who went missing Nov. 19 from his father’s home north of Vallecito Reservoir, was put on hold Tuesday while investigators redirected their efforts.
Shupe is filling in for Sheriff’s Office spokesman Dan Bender. He urged volunteer searchers to refrain from visiting Vallecito today.
“We’re looking for anyone we find home,” Shupe said.
A vigil is planned at 6 p.m. today at Eagle Park in Bayfield.
Dylan was reported missing the afternoon of Nov. 19 by his father, Mark Redwine, who saw his son about 7:30 a.m. as he left to run errands. The boy was gone when he returned about 11:30 a.m.
Redwine and Dylan’s mother, Elaine Redwine, divorced in 2007. She and Dylan and another son, Cory, moved to Colorado Springs this summer. Dylan was on a court-ordered visit with his father over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Volunteer search teams, up to 200 on a single day, turned no clues. Neither did a New Mexico State Police dive team that used sonar on Vallecito Reservoir that cadaver dogs earlier had indicate as hot spots.
The active search for Dylan took a recess Monday, the eighth day of intensive searching. The La Plata County Sheriff’s Office had five to seven investigators interviewing potential sources.
Shupe said task force members would start at the reservoir and work their way northward. He said they hope to survey the entire community in one day.
The task force comprises members from the Sheriff’s Office, Durango Police Department, the FBI and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
In response to specific questions about what direction his investigations are taking, Bender said: “We have not closed the door on anything. We do not comment about ongoing investigations until they’re brought to a conclusion.”
The Vallecito task is following what typically happens in the disappearance of a child, said Bob Lowery, executive director of the missing children division of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Suspending an active search for a missing child doesn’t mean it is put on the back burner, Lowery said.
“There are two components to a missing-child case – the active search and the work of investigators, which goes on out of sight and after a search ends,” Lowery said.
The center has one of its 84 Team Adam members in La Plata County to support investigators, Lowery said. Team Adam is made up of retired law-enforcement officers with expertise in missing children.
The national center answers calls for help and offers help when it learns of a missing child, Lowery said. The organization, funded by the Department of Justice, distributes photos of missing children, tracks offenders and attempted abductions. The organization opened its doors in 1984.
A Colorado Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman said that historically, an estimated 12,000 to 14,000 children in Colorado go missing every year.
Rumors keep surfacing throughout the community that Redwine has been found, resident Denise Hess said. One rumor was that Redwine was seen at the Bayfield skate park, another said he was seen having dinner.
Parents are keeping their kids close in response to the teen’s disappearance by walking them to school bus stops, picking them up from school and not allowing them to go outside alone, Hess said.
“People are worried and scared because we don’t know what happened to Dylan. They’re worried about their families and what’s going on,” she said. “It’s a scary thing for this community because it’s a very small community, and this is one of our children.”
Hess said she and those close to the family maintain Redwine did not run away from his dad’s house.
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