Kyron Horman’s disappearance led to Oregon’s largest criminal investigation. The search lives on 16 years later

A search and rescue team conducts the search of a small pond near Skyline Elementary School looking for missing student, Kyron Horman, in Portland, Ore. on June 18, 2010. (Don Ryan/AP/File via CNN Newsource)

Though it was a comfortably cool summer morning in northern Oregon, teachers, children and their parents were drawn inside Skyline Elementary School to behold its young students’ lively science fair projects.

Seven-year-old Kyron Horman stood proudly next to his presentation on red-eyed tree frogs, with his homemade tri-fold poster bursting with shades of green and glued-on diagrams of the amphibian’s life cycle.

Kyron flashed a wide, toothy grin toward a camera capturing the moment – an image that would soon be splashed on missing child posters and nightly newscasts across the country.

The now infamous photo of Kyron and his frogs was taken in June 2010, and the bespeckled boy has not been seen or heard from since.

What immediately followed that bright June day were dark months marred by the state’s largest criminal investigation in history coming up empty, police questioning second graders for new leads and mounting legal battles among the Horman family grappling with utter devastation.

Now, more than 16 years after Kyron’s disappearance sparked a sweeping manhunt and shaped a generation of Oregon schoolchildren, investigators say they are leveraging new technology and have not given up on the search for him.

“We are working on this behind the scenes, following every possible clue. We are as determined today as we were in the days after Kyron disappeared, and my office will not rest until we have answered the question of what happened to Kyron Horman,” said Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez in a statement marking the anniversary of the boy’s disappearance.

“To anyone out there who holds the answer – we are not going away,” Vasquez said. “We will continue our hunt for justice for as long as it takes.”

Authorities introduce new tech, boost staffing on Kyron’s case

Kaine Horman remembers the mad dash to the store for supplies to bring his son’s science fair vision to life, and he sat with Kyron as the second grader diligently mapped out his poster’s design.

His last conversation with his son, the morning of his disappearance, replays regularly in the father’s dreams.

“He walked me out to my car, and we were talking about his project for the science fair that day at the school,” Kaine Horman told CNN. “The sun was out, we’re out in the front yard, chatting it up before we both kind of go our separate ways for the day.”

“The little bit of that conversation comes up, and he’s just right there in front of me – and that’s when I usually end up waking up,” he said.

These days, Kaine Horman sees red-eyed tree frogs everywhere he goes: They’re on his sweatshirt, his hat, on a sticker stuck to the side of his Harley and in the rear windows of neighbours’ cars. He created the Kyron Horman Foundation – and its striking lime green tree frog logo – to raise awareness for his son’s disappearance and advocate for other families of missing children.

That work, along with his steadfast co-operation with investigators on Kyron’s case, keeps him hopeful that he’ll see his son again.

“We’re super grateful for how active (investigators) have been over the 16 years,” he said. “We’re still talking and doing updates, and we’re still communicating with the D.A.’s office. Sometimes there’s more, sometimes there’s less, but they’ve never stopped.”

In the 12 months after Kyron’s disappearance, investigators tracked more than 4,500 leads and conducted over 3,500 interviews, CNN previously reported. During that same timeframe, the county’s search and rescue coordinators and volunteers spent a combined 24,640 hours looking for the young boy.

Everything was documented on paper back then. Law enforcement agencies compiled such extensive material on Kyron’s case in the first year alone that the dozens of binders organizing the documents, if they were stacked upon each other, would soar roughly two stories high.

Over the course of the last year, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office worked to digitize the thousands of photos and reports, enabling detectives to now leverage “new technology tools to advance the investigation,” the sheriff’s office said in a June news release.

Though authorities declined to share exactly how they’ll be using new technology, digitizing the entire case file will allow detectives to promptly analyze the troves of written documents.

“They’ve talked about a lot of additional actionable information coming out of the recent digital work that they’ve been doing and continue to do, so we’re hopeful that’s going to get us in the right direction,” Kaine Horman said.

The sheriff’s office said it has also increased staffing on the case as it collaborates across local police teams and the FBI, saying it still receives hundreds of tips each year about the case and continues to carry out searches for Kyron.

“Sixteen years have passed since Kyron Horman disappeared. His family has lived through birthdays, holidays, and moments that mark the passage of time,” Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell said in the news release. “Our commitment to Kyron’s case remains as strong today as it was when he was first reported missing. We will keep doing everything we can to provide Kyron’s family the resolution they deserve.”

Kyron never made it to class after science fair

The impacts of Kyron’s disappearance ripple beyond the workdays of determined investigators and seep into the new normal for many schoolchildren across Oregon.

Skyline Elementary School has remained fully operational, serving hundreds of students since 2010, but not without the scars of a 7-year-old’s disappearance. The school, along with the sprawling hills and dense logging trails the campus is nestled between, became the focal point of an extensive crime scene once Kyron was reported missing.

Investigators sat across from nearly every young child at Skyline – many of whose nascent, swinging legs could not yet reach the ground from their chairs – interrogating them over their missing classmate. New surveillance cameras scrutinized any movement outside the school building and in the main hallway. Fixed-wing police airplanes regularly paced over the campus, with the hum of their propellers a consistent reminder to the Skyline students romping below that their small friend was still unaccounted for.

Kryon’s then-stepmother, Terri Horman, told police she dropped the second grader off for the school’s science fair that early June morning. Police say he was last spotted standing by his classroom doorway after presenting on frogs with bulging red eyes around 8:45 a.m.

But Kyron never made it to class, and no one knew he was missing. It was hours later – when he didn’t step off the school bus that afternoon – that his absence was noticed. The first 911 call reporting his disappearance wasn’t placed until 3:56 p.m.

Because of that long delay, Oregon lawmakers championed House Bill 3197 the next year, requiring public school districts to notify parents when a student is unexpectedly absent by the end of the school day they missed. Now, 15 years later, the law continues to guide district handbooks across Oregon.

Groups of amateur sleuths also cropped up in the hollows of tragedy to wrestle with the case and analyze rumours swarming the Horman family in online forums, echoing a familiar pattern of behaviour on the internet in the face of long-unsolved criminal cases.

At the centre of their intense scrutiny was Terri Horman, Kaine Horman’s estranged ex-wife, who online critics and members of the family claim was not forthcoming about what happened to Kyron. Police say she was the last person to see him before he disappeared.

In decade-old divorce filings, the boy’s father had said he believes Terri Horman had something to do with his son’s disappearance.

While investigators remain unyielding, no charges have been filed against Terri or anyone else in the case, nor has anyone officially been named as a suspect in Kyron’s disappearance.

“My opinion is still that I think she’s involved,” Kaine Horman said. “I’m just saying based on what I think, and other than that, I don’t know where she is, I don’t know what she’s doing and I don’t care.”

Kyron, who would turn 24 years old in September, is, for now, frozen in time as an endearing 2010s elementary schooler that cherishes his Wii, racing Hot Wheels and watching “Finding Nemo.”

Kaine Horman says the Disney movie’s plot of a devoted dad incessantly looking for his beloved son lost at sea mirrors his own relentless search. And so he keeps telling people about Kyron – the little boy who loves frogs – because as long as his story is still being told, the search is not over.

By Danya Gainor, CNN