Found Deceased OR - Joshua McCoy, 5, Autism, goes by "Josh" or "Joshie", may not respond, missing when mom woke up frm nap at 5:30pm, Stage Rd, Hauser, 10 Nov 2024

I am speculating that it was hypothermia. Too cold that many nights. Still do not understand why no description of clothes.
I guess the clothing description is not the important when looking for a child in the woods. It is not like there will be others out there.
RIP Joshua James McCoy, such a great cowboy name.
 
I do SAR and wanted to pipe in for a minute about why some searches are not open for walk ups. Criminal activity is one of those reasons but also we search for clues and understand that we cannot touch anything at all. We are trained to stop everybody, call in the boss and whatever LEO we have on our team and wait for further directions. This can sometimes change the focus on an area. Every search I have been on has had somebody not trained for it and that’s fine. Sometimes they are family and we are also trained never to talk about the search with anybody, not even the person on our flanks for that reason. On a recent search we had a younger person out with us without training, very gung ho youngster but when we stepped off this person went the wrong way which honestly could cause many problems like a tainted crime scene or even using manpower to search for a searcher that doesn’t understand we are doing grid searches and not hiking the trails which was the case. Having too many people in the woods can hamper the results we are striving for and that’s a safe rescue or a recovery that needs collection of evidence for justice.
I hope this little guy is found safe, healthy, dry and warm
 
I do SAR and wanted to pipe in for a minute about why some searches are not open for walk ups. Criminal activity is one of those reasons but also we search for clues and understand that we cannot touch anything at all. We are trained to stop everybody, call in the boss and whatever LEO we have on our team and wait for further directions. This can sometimes change the focus on an area. Every search I have been on has had somebody not trained for it and that’s fine. Sometimes they are family and we are also trained never to talk about the search with anybody, not even the person on our flanks for that reason. On a recent search we had a younger person out with us without training, very gung ho youngster but when we stepped off this person went the wrong way which honestly could cause many problems like a tainted crime scene or even using manpower to search for a searcher that doesn’t understand we are doing grid searches and not hiking the trails which was the case. Having too many people in the woods can hamper the results we are striving for and that’s a safe rescue or a recovery that needs collection of evidence for justice.
I hope this little guy is found safe, healthy, dry and warm

Good info.! How do you get involved with this type of thing as a volunteer?
 

I do SAR and wanted to pipe in for a minute about why some searches are not open for walk ups. Criminal activity is one of those reasons but also we search for clues and understand that we cannot touch anything at all. We are trained to stop everybody, call in the boss and whatever LEO we have on our team and wait for further directions. This can sometimes change the focus on an area. Every search I have been on has had somebody not trained for it and that’s fine. Sometimes they are family and we are also trained never to talk about the search with anybody, not even the person on our flanks for that reason. On a recent search we had a younger person out with us without training, very gung ho youngster but when we stepped off this person went the wrong way which honestly could cause many problems like a tainted crime scene or even using manpower to search for a searcher that doesn’t understand we are doing grid searches and not hiking the trails which was the case. Having too many people in the woods can hamper the results we are striving for and that’s a safe rescue or a recovery that needs collection of evidence for justice.
I hope this little guy is found safe, healthy, dry and warm
Unfortunately, this little boy was found dead today. I’m wondering if LE suspected he was already gone, and that’s why they didn’t want help.


That said, If he died of hypothermia because it took 3 days and nights to find him, I imagine LEO would have made a different call about whether to have as many searchers in the area as possible. MOO
 
Unfortunately, this little boy was found dead today. I’m wondering if LE suspected he was already gone, and that’s why they didn’t want help.


That said, If he died of hypothermia because it took 3 days and nights to find him, I imagine LEO would have made a different call about whether to have as many searchers in the area as possible. MOO
I'm angry about this, but not angry at any specific people, just angry at "luck" or "fate". Yes, if they had opened the searching to whoever wanted to come look, it seems much more likely they would have found him alive, far, far outside the area they believed were the limits of his wandering capabilities, which was almost no territory at all.

However, these searchers did the very best they could with what they had to work with and I'm sure they're heartbroken this little one is deceased. Prayers for them as they process this and hope they know they did the best they could.
 
I'm angry about this, but not angry at any specific people, just angry at "luck" or "fate". Yes, if they had opened the searching to whoever wanted to come look, it seems much more likely they would have found him alive, far, far outside the area they believed were the limits of his wandering capabilities, which was almost no territory at all.

However, these searchers did the very best they could with what they had to work with and I'm sure they're heartbroken this little one is deceased. Prayers for them as they process this and hope they know they did the best they could.
Agreed- with family members who do SAR there is a trade off between man power and precision - if this little one wandered too far then perhaps LE can amend their protocols, and they very likely did the best they could with the information they had- if foul play is the case- no amount of searching could have saved him- moo
 
I'm angry about this, but not angry at any specific people, just angry at "luck" or "fate". Yes, if they had opened the searching to whoever wanted to come look, it seems much more likely they would have found him alive, far, far outside the area they believed were the limits of his wandering capabilities, which was almost no territory at all.

However, these searchers did the very best they could with what they had to work with and I'm sure they're heartbroken this little one is deceased. Prayers for them as they process this and hope they know they did the best they could.
I’m going to reserve making public comment until we hear from the police what sort of tragic accident this has been, or there has been an arrest… MOO. Maybe we can at least agree that there probably should not have been a delay in reporting he was missing?
 
I’m going to reserve making public comment until we hear from the police what sort of tragic accident this has been, or there has been an arrest… MOO. Maybe we can at least agree that there probably should not have been a delay in reporting he was missing?
Agreed- and we don’t have enough information to actually know or speculate- I just hope it was a tragic accident- moo
 
I’m going to reserve making public comment until we hear from the police what sort of tragic accident this has been, or there has been an arrest… MOO. Maybe we can at least agree that there probably should not have been a delay in reporting he was missing?
There wasn't the big delay in reporting him missing, despite what was reported before. LE was on the scene at 6:47 after receiving a call. I'm just so sad for this loss. And oddly, it seems more difficult to me that there's no one to blame. It's just . . . loss.
 
Oh no. I had such hope he would be found before he passed. Sweet faced boy gone too soon.

More information from the Sheriff's department. Found 1.6 miles from home.

From the media release ^
discovered the child had a cellphone, and a phone-ping of that phone was conducted. The information related to the phone-ping did not provide any fruitful information.

Several Deputies began a search of the property, while investigating the allegations of Joshua being picked up by a known family member which was later found not be factual.

—-


I hadn’t heard that the boy had a cellphone. Was it his?? His mother’s? I find it unusual that a 5 y.o. would have a phone of his own, but you never know.

Also hadn’t heard the allegation the boy was picked up by a family member.
 

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