Sheriff in Kyron Horman Search Vows, 'We're Going to Bring You Home Buddy'

June 7, 2010

An investigator in Oregon vowed to bring home a missing second grader, choking up as he tried to send a message to 7-year-old Kyron Horman.

"Kyron, we're going to bring you home buddy," Multnomah County Sheriff's Capt. Jason Gates said today, struggling to hold back tears. "Nothing is more important to your family and friends."

Gates said authorities have received 1,200 tips, but are continuing to seek out anyone who was anywhere near Skyline Elementary School in Portland Friday morning.

The captain said he is relying on those tips.

"One of these is going to lead us to finding Kyron," he said.

There has been no trace of the 7-year-old boy who proudly showed off his project on frogs at a school science fair before vanishing Friday morning. He was last seen by his step-mother walking toward his classroom, 150 feet away. He never made it.

Gates said a source at the school saw him around 9 a.m. Friday, but declined to provide details. The school does not have video cameras. The FBI and the National Guard joined the search over the weekend.

"The kids are doing pretty well," Portland Public Schools spokesman Matt Shelby said today. "It's a pretty somber mood among the adults today."

Though there is understandable concern among parents that one of their own vanished in what is typically considered to be a safe environment, Shelby said parents and the students have been cooperative with authorities.

PHOTO Kyron Horman, a 7-year-old Portland, Ore., boy disappeared Friday, June 4, 2010, at Skyline Elementary School, shortly after leaving an early morning science fair, where he presented his project on tree frogs.

Courtesy the Horman family

Kyron Horman, a 7-year-old Portland, Ore.,... View Full Caption

More than two-thirds of the school's population, about 300 children in grades K-8, showed up voluntarily Sunday to be interviewed by police.

Among their questions were about Kyron's likes and dislikes, his hobbies and his friends. His parents have so far declined to speak publicly about their son's disappearance.

Gates said today that parents and students who didn't come Sunday were being interviewed today. Investigators also stood in the street near the school today around the same time Kyron disappeared Friday, questioning drivers who may pass the school as part of their normal routes.

FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said today that there's not even enough evidence to classify the disappearance as an abduction.

Kyron Horman's School Was Full of People the Day He Vanished

"They're keeping all options open," she said. "They have no specific evidence at this point that he was kidnapped."

Shelby said the school has focused on keeping routines as normal for the children as possible. They have all been told their classmate is missing.

"We're trying not to jump to conclusions or speculate too much," he said.

A "safe room" has been set up for parents and students seeking counseling and extra substitute teachers have been called in to relieve teachers who need a break in dealing with Kyron's disapperarance.

Shelby said that visitors to the school are normally required to check in and receive a badge. But since the science fair was held before school hours, most did not go through that process, Shelby said, calling the fair a "semi-public" event.

"It was a full building," he said. "People were going from classroom to classroom."

Kyron's step-mother, Terri Moulton Horman, last saw him around 8:45 a.m. as he walked down the hallway. The last school official to see the boy put him in the classroom earlier that morning showing off his project. No school official saw him after that.

When Kyron did not return home on his school bus as scheduled at 3:30 p.m. Friday, his family called to report that he had not returned home.