Hello everyone,
I am new to the forum and am glad to be here. There are a few things I'd like to present regarding the disappearance of Jaryd Atadero. I belong to a new, small organization called Thunder Street Ministry that seeks to help families broaden awareness for their cold cases and, when possible, provide investigative services at no cost to the victim's family. One such family we are working with is the Atadero family. I'd like to take a moment to correct some of the erroneous information in this thread, as it has caused the family needless emotional strain after visiting this and other forums like it. They came to places like this hoping to find new ideas regarding their cases, but were faced with accusations instead. We were not asked to post this, but it is part of our outreach to help keep information sound and fact-based.
Thunder Street team members made a visit to Poudre Canyon from September 21st-24th, and spent some time with the Atadero family on the Big South Trail.
1. The group Jaryd was with was comprised of individuals known to Allyn and whom he'd hosted at the resort in the past, save for three new people in the group. The woman who was initially looking after Jaryd and his sister was a family friend who had babysat the kids on several occasions and had given the family a place to stay when they first moved to Colorado.
2. Initially, when Allyn refused to let Jaryd go on the hike, he was told they were only going to the Poudre River Fish Hatchery, which is less than ten minutes from the resort. He was familiar with that area, and eventually let Jaryd go along. The team made a stop here on the second day of the trip, and found it to be an ideal place for families to take their kids. The group then left without telling Allyn where they had gone.
3. Jaryd's parents divorced a year or two before moving to Colorado, so she was not in the picture until after Jaryd disappeared.
4. The condition of clothing indicates that someone placed them there to be found. As someone mentioned earlier in the forum, the clothes would have been covered with debris if they were even strong enough to have lasted four winters in the canyon. Since Jaryd was wearing a fleece pullover and sweatpants, there would have been anything left but tatters after so long a time. Mountain lions do not "skin" their prey, and thus would not remove clothing. Mountain lion cubs would have no reason to tug at the pants in such a way as to remove them. The missing leg was due to birds, rodents, and insects chewing up the fabric. The NecroSearch team explained to Allyn that birds and other small animals took pieces of the cloth to their nests and such, and they even pointed out where they could see some of this fabric in nearby trees.
5. The remains found are completely inconsistent with a mountain lion attack. Initially, they did not find any remains with the clothing. After a press conference was held and the sheriff made his claim that it was a mountain lion attack, a well-respected medical examiner by the name of Dr. Michael Baden was interviewed. He was very blunt in his analysis that if it were a mountain lion attack, you wouldn't just find nothing. He said you'd find small bones in the shoes and that you'd at least find a tooth. It was after this they sent the forensic team knows as NecroSearch to comb the area and found a tooth sitting on top of a log with no debris covering it. The tooth was also determined to be from the lower jaw, which was not found in the area.
6. The Sheriff who was in charge of the actual search was present only when news cameras were present. When they left, he left. He was also the architect of the mountain lion theory, which he claimed was what the press wanted to hear. Behind the scenes, he told Allyn that he believed Jaryd fell in the river. He followed this by saying that the body wouldn't surface for five years because the waters were so cold. This is both a physical and forensic impossibility. We've seen the river with our own eyes, and if Jaryd had fell in the river he would have gotten caught up in the many protruding rocks or patches of bare river bed not long after. The river has so many shallow rocky spots with less than three inches of water that the odds of his not being found by divers and SAR were virtually none.
7. The sighting of Jaryd at Mesa Verde National Park is still a mystery that has not been properly followed up on, but it is a major kink in the mountain lion/drowing theories. For those not familiar, a seasonal ranger at Mesa Verde was leading a morning tour group when a little boy kept coming up to him trying to hold his hand. The ranger said the man he was with kept calling the boy something that sounded like "Gerald." That night, as he was watching the news with his wife, Jaryd's picture came up and he immediately recognized him as the boy he saw in the group. We are reaching out to the ranger to inquire further.
8. Allyn Atadero is not getting paid to do any speaking engagements or podcasts. It's rare anyone wants to talk with him about it at all.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you have any questions regarding this case please ask. We have a large amount of information at our disposal. I'd also advise against taking any cues from books claiming there is a paranormal force behind this abduction. They tend to present a very incomplete picture of what happened over the course of that week.
