NC NC - Steven Wayne LeCount, 63, Lansing, 10 Aug 2025

[Vern_S]

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

By bringing people, information, forensic science and technology together, NamUs helps resolve cases.

www.namus.gov

Authorities are searching for 63 year old Steven Lecount, described as a white male, 5'7" tall, 170 lbs with short dark blackish gray hair that is thinning on top. He was last seen around 2 pm at 285 Howell Rd in Lansing wearing camouflage shorts, a white t-shirt with a graphic on the front and work boots. Mr. Lecount has a head injury, has impaired speech and has the cognitive abilities of a child. If you have seen Mr. Lecount, please call 336-846-5600.

 

[Vern_S]

UPDATE: Active search efforts have been paused pending any new information. Our hearts go out to his family, friends, and everyone who took part in the search. Thank you to all who shared, supported, and showed kindness throughout this difficult time.

Ashe County Emergency Management

UPDATE: Active search efforts have been paused pending any new information. Our hearts go out to his family, friends, and everyone who took part in the search. Thank you to all who shared, supported,...

www.facebook.com

 

[Vern_S]

On Sunday, Aug 31, I was up in Lansing NC conducting a search for Steven LeCount.

Steven lived on Howell Rd with his sister not far from the North Fork of the New River. According to the family, A K9 tracked his scent to a bench swing about 30ft from the river. Along the route is a steep slope off Sillas Creek Rd into a drainage area.

My first search objective was to clear the drainage area. Everywhere that the water surface was clear of vegetation, the depth ranged from 3ft to 6ft. This would have been difficult for the prior search teams to search without sonar being used or divers.

I ran several passes through these waters with a Sonar Search USV I have developed. Its small formfactor and thrusters inboard of the outer pontoons made navigating the drainage waters a breeze.

Sonar showed a relatively clean bottom with some veg in shallow areas. There was no indication that Steven was in these waters.

The heavy areas of vegetation around the water were heavily trampled from the prior searchers. I conducted an aerial search with Thermal of this area just to be sure.

I then started searching the river from a bridge about a mile upriver where a person reported that he “may” have seen Steven. This bridge is where kayakers can enter the river and has heavy foot traffic especially on weekends. I inspected the debris pile and around all of the supports.

I then proceeded down the river. Along the way I inspected areas of deadfall along the shoreline.

Here is the area where the bench swing is located. There are plenty of large rocks that Steven could have tripped over and fell into the river. Current is fairly swift and is 3ft to 5 ft where the water passes around the shore feature.

At this point I had to suspend the search due to a storm rolling in.

With the drainage area cleared and the river aerial searched from the upriver bridge to the bench swing complete, the next step is to aerial search the river downstream as far as the first dam located in VA. This is approximately 20 miles of river.

The goal is to aerial search the riverbed where possible as well as the banks of the river, especially around deadfall and debris piles. Deeper sections where visibility to the riverbed is obscured will need to be checked by sonar. I will be conducting this search this coming weekend.

 

[Vern_S]

Here is an update on my search for Steven.

I have made trips to the search area every weekend either on Saturday or Sunday. I searched 5 ponds with my sonar boat on the east side of the river. I also searched the creeks that connect the ponds and drain into the New River. I also searched an abandoned house on the river. I then continued searching the River by drone. So far I have searched almost 9 miles of river.

The most interesting thing I saw was over 20 ducks floating on the river. They show up really well on Thermal using the "white hot" mode. You can also see the zoom capability of the drone I am using.

I will not be searching this coming weekend due to inclement weather, but will continue as soon as the skies clear back up.