OR OR - Samuel Boehlke-Becker, 8, Crater Lake National Park, 14 Oct 2006

[Gmommy]

Hi Gmommy,

So you think he could still be up in those woods and just was not discovered?
Scandi

I think this is always a possibility regardless of how he went missing-with or without parental involvement.

Do you think he could have traveled very far off the road?
Scandi

Definitely. I know autistic children tend to have more stamina than average kids, especially when they are focused on whatever their goal is-to hide, to run, etc. I have worked as a volunteer with autistic children and my brother has been working in a group home for autistic adults for years and I'm sure he would agree. Even mildly autistic children have this way of getting that tunnel vision/focus on their goal and they will do everything to complete it even at their own risk without knowing they are putting themselves at risk.

Do you think he could have run the opposite direction and went into the lake?
Scandi

According to the park rangers they don't think this is possible because the area in which he went missing has a lot of obstacles that would prevent him from going into the lake. I guess the father's statements also put him going away from the lake rather than toward it but to me that doesn't mean he couldn't have gotten out of sight and taken a different trail back toward the water and hiked down there himself.

Do you know if anyone has ever been lost in the lake before? Did their bodies surface or not?
Scandi

I thought I had read something somewhere about another person who went missing years ago and had never been recovered but i was unable to locate anything other than something about a search for a missing person in 1939 with nothing at all useful to note.

Like I said, we're all pretty much stuck in the watch and wait mode if we cannot go there to help. The news reports have been all over the place on this one, some say he wasn't dressed appropriately, others say he was, some have said he had slip on shoes while others said he had hiking shoes on and then there are the variations in reports about the father's statement. I am just hoping they find this kid before winter really buries that area or I fear they may never find him

 

[cynpat2000]

I wonder if anyone besides the father saw sammie at the woods. The father may be sending them on a wild goose chase. And maybe his body is elsewhere.

 

[Gmommy]

I think it did snow lightly the night after he disappeared but not the night he went missing. I know avalanche dogs have found many a person but I don't know if those were the type of search dogs they were using and I only know very little about how they train these search and rescue dogs from my former neighbors and the little bits I have read in the news.

I know the snow would cover any tracks but could also reveal new ones. One of the things that sticks out in my mind is that they did mention finding just animal tracks but there have not been mention of any other tracks found.

I don't think the father and son set out to go on a hike, I think they went to the Cleetwood Cove pullout probably to take some nice pictures-it's a good photo spot. In the reports the father has said they were getting ready to go when Sammy disappeared-probably back to the resort where they were staying with family.

 

[californiacarrie]

i still do not understand how or why a boy of that age, who was not severely retarded or mentally ill- just "slightly autistic" would just run off into the woods for no reason, and keep going further and further into the woods. it would be cold, his basic human instinct (unless he had an IQ of zero) would be to isoon turn around and come back to his father, especially if he was calling for him. even if he was hiding from him for a 1/2 hour or so, he would get cold pretty quick and think "gee, i better go back to my dad/the car so i can get warm." this is what led me to believe he was actually running or hiding FROM his father- perhaps his father was angry or threatening to punish him.. those are just guesses, but i just can't see why anyone would do that.

also i find the story 'we were playing tag' kind of odd.. if you were leaving a park, why would you stop the car by the woods and pay tag? most dads don't play tag with their kids.. especially not if you were in a huge park, by the woods, in the cold, and if yours had autism and was prone to randomly running off & hiding.

Some day you will meet a child with autism reb and understand...
If my son were to have run off into the woods, he would not come back if I were to call for him - he would likely be in his own little world, looking for or noticing things that only he knows or notices. And if human instinct kicked in once he got cold (which he has a high tolerance level for) he may try to head back to the car but he wouldn't have a clue as to which way to go if it were unfarmilliar territory. And then I'm guessing he would panic, and I have no idea what he would do... This is exactly why MY son isn't allowed further than a few feet away from me when we are in an uninclosed area. While I can see how something like this could happen, I agree that it should not have happened based on the childs known history. Sounds to me like dad had a lapse of judgement and I'm curious to know if he may have been drinking that day.

 

[reb]

cc... well, i'm just trying to understand how this could happen... i've read a lot about child psychological issues & autism... but you're absolutely right,, you really have to experience it firsthand to know. it's a hard thing to grasp, but just because i don't get it, doesn't mean it couldn't happen! i guess the reason i doubted the plausibility of this was because it was said he had a 'slight case' of autism.

 

[LinasK]

cc... well, i'm just trying to understand how this could happen... i've read a lot about child psychological issues & autism... but you're absolutely right,, you really have to experience it firsthand to know. it's a hard thing to grasp, but just because i don't get it, doesn't mean it couldn't happen! i guess the reason i doubted the plausibility of this was because it was said he had a 'slight case' of autism.

My best friend's daughter is " borderline" on the autistic disorder spectrum. She rarely is a tantrum behavior child, but very language delayed, and is just beginning to come out of her shell. She acts just like the children that have been described. She is very interested in nature and would wander off and doesn't always respond to being called by her name...

 

[Becba]

I think this little boy curled up somewhere to get warm, like a downed tree or something. that would make it hard to find him.

 

[scandi]

Gmommy, You're stellar! Thanks for taking the time to answer all those questions. Of course it's when we don't have many details that all these questions come to mind, but you did a great job.

I am especially happy to believe now that he Sammy didn't go into the lake. That has been bothering me a lot.


Scandi

 

[Gmommy]

Gmommy, You're stellar! Thanks for taking the time to answer all those questions. Of course it's when we don't have many details that all these questions come to mind, but you did a great job.

I am especially happy to believe now that he Sammy didn't go into the lake. That has been bothering me a lot.


Scandi

No problem. I forgot to mention that at that pullout not only were there a lot of obstacles toward the water but that the water was between 700-1000 feet below-another small comfort in a very horrible situation. I wish I knew what his autism varient is like-sensory integration I believe it was referred to in one article.

It really sounds like the rangers in Crater Lake are to be commended on this-right away they realized their limited resources couldn't handle this search and they didn't wait around to call in for help-not fighting over anybody's jurisdiction or anything like that. They all just want to find this little guy as quickly as possible. The park's media contact has been pretty forthcoming but there's simply not a lot of new information to report-the news in my part of Oregon doesn't have anything new nor do any of the Southern Oregon area media outlets much closer to the lake.

 

[scandi]

Hi Gmommy,

It could be LE is playing this close to the vest. They're kind of like that in that part of Oregon and over Eugene-Corvallis way. Remember with Brooke after the initial press, we heard nothing new, and yet LE was very much on it working hard, and the next thing we knew is the guy in New Mexico was named as the suspect to be indighted after they could get him up here.

If it was a hiker I could see their not being able to find him. But LE started searching before the snow fell and so they should have seen shoe prints. And although Sammy had a winter coat on, he had no hat or gloves. I think his little body would start to go into hypothermia from the cold, no matter if he was borderline autistic.

I somehow think we will be hearing a lot more about this, and still think Sammy ran off at a different point that what the father said. He could have been drinking, although the media didn't mention that, or it might have been the reason he went up there with Sammy in the first place! I hope not.


Scandi

 

[Bobbisangel]

I wonder if this mom knows about Tim Miller and Co. I'll bet some of their guys would help search for this boy if they were called. I just wonder how many resources this mom even knows about?

 

[HollywoodBound]

I know I asked this before but does anyone know whether the dogs were called in to track before the snow fall that night? I know dogs were called in, but was it the next day when the snow was on the ground.

 

[cynpat2000]

Has anybody heard anything new?

 

[scandi]

I haven't heard anything new. I thought your post might hold new info~! LOL

Scandi

 

[chloekitten]

any news?

 

[scandi]

I'm thinking so too Cynpat, unless the dad gave him a heave-ho into the lake over the cliff. He would sink, and the water is so cold his little body might never come up. Crater Lake is only filled by rain and run-off water from snow so it never warms up very much. And I know the lake has a depth, but I grew up here in Oregon and we were always told that since it was a real crater of Mt Mazamma they had never found the bottom of the lake.

Boy, I hope some LE office is working on this little boy Sammie's case. It is just so awful for him to vanish like that, without hide nor hair nor any sign of him at all.

Scandi

 

[scandi]

I just wanted to let everyone know that over the holiday the family and Sam's mom and dad held a memorial service for him in Portland.

I hope we find out the answer about this little boy and what in the world happened to him. He was fragile with his bit of a disability, and I know that God needed him to come home or he would still be with his family. God bless them all.

Scandi

 

[californiacarrie]

They've still never found anything? I'm gonna count on you to update us if they ever do scandi, okay?

 

[Kymistry35]

Was it ever determined if the boy ever really was in the park that day with dad?

 

[Lurker Steve]

It's been a few years since I went to Crater Lake, but...

I don't think cell phone service would have been possible. You'd have to drive to the "Rim Village" which has a landline. I can easily see the father not wanting to drive away after only searching for his kid an hour.

I don't remember how easy it would be to just throw a body into the lake - it's not a sheer cliff as I recall, it would be hard to even throw a rock into the lake.

This seems like a really strange incident for either a parental killing or a stranger abduction. The father could just as easily said that he wandered towards the lake, a natural "he must have fallen in" excuse. I can't see a stranger hiding out this far in the middle of nowhere hoping that a kid separated from his parents would wander by, and then expect to get away; there is literally one road around the rim.