By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
Family and friends finished a second day of searching for the missing Morton teenager Austin King about 8 p.m. last night, with no luck.
“Just all over,” his older step-sister Michelle Bloomstrom said of where they looked. “In the brush, on the river, up logging roads.”
Austin King
Christy Harper said she last saw her 16-year-old son about 12:15 a.m. on June 23 when he said goodnight and went off to his bedroom with two buddies to watch television.
Wednesday came and went, and then on Thursday when they knocked on his door, he didn’t answer. He wasn’t there, she said.
Austin, one of four children who live with her on Chapman Road in the Tilton River Mobile Home Park, sleeps in a small detached building he calls his apartment, his mom said. It’s not unusual for Austin to sleep in and not emerge from his room until mid-day, explaining why he wasn’t missed earlier.
But last Thursday she spoke to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office to make a missing person report. She’s worried and says she doesn’t think he ran away.
“He’s never taken off without telling us where he’s going,” Harper said Tuesday night.
Austin hasn’t been in touch with his girlfriend who he normally texts or talks to every day, she said. The family has posted fliers everywhere they can, she said.
A sheriff’s detective interviewed Austin’s family and friends. Two deputies joined the group on Tuesday during their search.
The 16-year-old, who his mother said is home schooled, doesn’t have a debit card, a credit card or cell phone detectives can track, according to sheriff’s Cmdr. Steve Aust.
“We’ve exhausted our leads,” Aust said yesterday. “At this point, we just stay on top of it.”
The sheriff’s office hasn’t organized a search and rescue group, because there’s no one place to start looking, according to Aust. The two days of searching this week were organized by a Morton woman. They plan to do it again today.
Harper said her son doesn’t go out after dark, or really anywhere without somebody else. He likes to spend time playing video games, listening to music and watching movies, she said.
The sheriff’s office has technically classified Austin as a runaway juvenile, but that’s just “semantics,” Aust said. Being put in the system that way means if he comes into contact with a law enforcement officer, they will return him home, Aust said.
The vast majority of cases like this are resolved with no problem, Aust said.
The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office already this year has taken 77 missing person/runaway juvenile reports, according to Aust. Only six of those remain active cases, and all six are runaway juveniles, according to Aust.
“We don’t have any reason to believe it was foul play, to believe he ran away, to believe its suicide, we’re just at a dead end,” Aust said.
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