Kyron Horman A Little Boy Who Vanished, Portland, 2010.

I just read that the search for this 7 year old boy was the most expensive in Oregon’s history. Sadly though there is much rumour and all that money and effort did not bring a conclusion.

(update: A $50,000 reward is offered for the right information so if you know anything the link to the family is below)

Brief Circumstances.

On 4th June 2010 Kyron went to Skyline Elementary School in Portland with his step mother Terri Horman. Kyron and Terri were at the school’s science fair until about 08.45 am. Terri says she saw the boy walk off down a corridor to his first class.

She then ran some errands and drove around for a bit. Her infant daughter had an earache and Terri hoped it would be soothed by the motion of the car. Later she went to the gym. By early afternoon she posted some pictures of Kyron on Facebook. The pictures had been taken that morning at the school fair. At about 3 pm she, the baby and her husband walked up to meet Kyron from the school bus.

He was not on it and when they contacted the school they were told he had not attended his first class.

Police went to work straight away. They searched in a radius around the school for the boy, but also searched several miles away at a place called Sauvie Island. There seems to be no explanation given as to why they did this.

Terri and her husband, Kaine, had got together as Kyron’s parents divorced. When Kyron’s mother fell ill with kidney issues the boy had started living with his father and Terri full time. That was in 2004. Before that Kyron had been subject of a shared custody arrangement. The baby had been born in 2008.

No trace of this little boy has been firmly established since.

Controversy

Terri insists she left the boy in the school. However, no-one in the school saw him after the science fair first thing in the morning. So the cops naturally looked at her seriously.

The couple’s gardener told police that Terri had offered him money to kill Kaine. Later though the gardener was asked the same question by Terri’s lawyer and he denied it. This is where the rumour comes in. Terri was investigated and I cannot say she was cleared, but she was not charged either. At one point information was sought about a person seen with Terri, at the school. This person was supposedly sitting in her truck, nothing came of it.

Rumour or not by 28th June, a whole 24 days after his boy went missing, Kaine Horman had filed for divorce from Terri. Later she would only be granted supervised visitation with her own baby daughter.

Terri had a friend that dashed away from her landscaping job at one point in the morning of 4th June. This same friend, DeDe Spicher, later refused to answer grand jury questions. Many of the questions related to her movements in relation to Terri on that day.

Desiree Young, Kyron’s mother, began a law suit against Terri Horman alleging she was responsible for the boy’s disappearance. The law suit was going strong when Mrs Young withdrew it. She said she did not want to compromise the ongoing investigation into her son’s disappearance.

My Take

I feel very sad for this smiling little boy. Whatever happened that day he didn’t deserve it. What sort of society do we have worldwide where this can happen? It can never be said to be a good one.

Evidence is evidence and the rest is speculation. That said the investigation and the circumstances point in one direction. Why did the cops search in a radius from the school but also leap several miles to an area disconnected from the school? I presume they had some inkling from the start that this was not just a case of a stranger abduction. I have read that in addition to divorcing Terri, Kaine also had a restraining order granted against her. A lot is going on below the surface on this one.

There are apparently witnesses that say Terri was seen walking back out to her truck with the boy after the science fair. It is just what I have heard. Evidence is evidence and unless something  tangible comes up other options have to be considered. For me there are too many of them with no clue offered to speculate further.

In cases like this I always think of the ‘Dingo’ case. The mother of an infant savaged by wild dogs in Australia, all the evidence pointed to her having killed her child. All the evidence was wrong. I am not concluding that Terri (was Horman) is innocent. I am just pointing out that until the fat evidence sings all possibilities are reality.

Another sad and unexplained Portland mystery is covered here on Reasoned Crime Chronicle. The Martin family left their home to gather foliage for Christmas decorations. Only two of them were ever found. 

Bless Kyron.

Take Care

Tim