Parents of Missing Toddler 'Know Where He Is': Sheriff

Parents officially named as suspects in DeOrr Kunz disappearance
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 25, 2016 5:16 PM CST

After Idaho toddler DeOrr Kunz went missing during a family camping trip in July, his parents said they were holding out hope that the 2-year-old was with someone, and that he would be returned to them. Six months later, the Lemhi County Sheriff's Office says "I don't believe we have an abducted child"—and the boy's mother and father are the top suspects in his disappearance, KBOI reports. "They know something, I just don't know what they know. It causes me alarm. I believe they know where he is absolutely," Sheriff Lynn Bowerman says, adding that DeOrr Kunz Sr. and Jessica Mitchell "are being less than truthful." Mitchell and Kunz Sr. say they left DeOrr with Mitchell's grandfather and went on a walk a short distance away but the grandfather thought DeOrr had gone to his parents.

Bowerman says the investigation just recently took this turn, after behavior analysts and the FBI submitted their findings, and detectives brought DeOrr's parents in again for follow-up interviews. "I thought I'd give them another opportunity to tell us what happened," Bowerman says. Per KTVB, the sheriff says the parents "refused to give us any further information to clear up the untruthfulness and they've changed their story on numerous occasions." EastIdahoNews.com is re-running its interview with the parents from three days after their son went missing; the news organization notes it's the only on-camera interview they've given. "He's a goer and a mover but he does not go away from his parents," Kunz Sr. says in the video. "He's very attached to us," Mitchell adds. (More missing toddler stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X