In this article
http://durangoherald.com/article/20121201/NEWS01/121209940/Volunteers-not-giving-up-hope-- there is a poorly phrased sentence: ("She said Dylan would never put his mother through that pain. If he was having a bad time at the lake, he would call or text his mother, as he did once before disappearing, she said.")
In other words, the poor phrasing of this sentence can be interpreted as him going missing before, which we do not think to be the case, that rather this sentence is referring to the scowl text.
When I first read it, I too was like "What?"