Officials scale back campground search efforts for Deorr Kunz
Published at | Updated at
LEADORE – The Lemhi County Sheriff’s Office is officially scaling back search efforts in the Timber Creek/Stone Reservoir area for missing Idaho Falls toddler Deorr Kunz.
“After ten days of searching, diving, and scouring the hillsides, the Sheriff’s Office has decided to redirect the investigation,” Sheriff Lynn Bowerman said in a news release. “The Sheriff’s Office will keep a presence in the Timber Creek area, continuing to search for clues, and has not ruled out abduction by strangers or wild animals.”
Bowerman said Deorr’s family has cooperated with law enforcement and has volunteered to take polygraphs. He said the parents are not considered suspects and “this is a routine procedure.”
Deorr was camping with his parents, great-grandfather and a friend of the grandfather when he disappeared on July 10.
Crews have spent dozens of hours focusing on the Stone Reservoir after cadaver dogs indicated there may be something there. On Friday, Bowerman told HLN they learned someone had been dumping human cremains in the reservoir, and that could be the smell the dogs picked up on.
“It’s pretty disappointing,” Bowerman said to HLN. “Someone was depositing human cremains up there while we’re searching the area. It contaminates the reservoir and the entire area.”
Several agencies, including the Lemhi County Sheriff’s Office, Salmon Search and Rescue, Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office, and Idaho Fish and Game, have spent over a week searching for the boy.
“Numerous resources, including helicopters with FLIR, diver’s, side scan sonar, scent dogs, cadaver dogs, horses, ATV’s, and over 300 people, were used,” Bowerman said, “With absolutely no sign of the victim.”
In Monday’s news release, Bowerman doesn’t say what steps the Sheriff’s Office will now take in the investigation.
The Lemhi County Sheriff’s office is asking the public to continue to report any information to the Idaho Fusion Center at 208-846-7676, or to the Lemhi County Sheriff’s Office at 208-756-8980.
