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Dive teams search for missing boy in Brookfield
Brookfield
The search for a missing 12-year-old Sharon boy will continue this morning, after a full day of searching Friday by family members, friends and law enforcement.
“I just want them to find him all right,” said Mark Goodrich Sr., of his missing son, Mark Goodrich Jr.
Goodrich said he last saw his son at about 10 a.m. Thursday at his King Street residence when the boy said he was going to his mother’s house.
Goodrich lent his son his cellphone. As the day wore on and Goodrich didn’t hear from his son again, he got worried.
“I started calling everybody and said, ‘If you see him, bring him home,’ ” he said, saying he contacted everyone he knew in Sharon, Farrell and Brookfield.
Sharon police were notified that the boy was missing late Thursday and Goodrich later got a call from a friend who said that the boy was seen in Brookfield. Goodrich said about 50 friends and family members searched in Brookfield, particularly along the Shenango River, Friday morning.
By 4 p.m. Friday, safety crews from Sharon, Brookfield, Weathersfield and Mecca had converged along the river’s banks along U.S. Route 62 and the Pennsylvania state line, based on information gathered by Sharon police.
Brookfield Police Chief Dan Faustino said security footage from Duferco Steel had been turned over to police. He said the footage shows several boys jumping off an old rail bridge into the river, but it’s unknown if the missing boy is among the group.
The video stopped recording and doesn’t show if the boys got out of the water, Faustino said.
Brookfield Fire Chief Keith Barrett said his department was contacted Friday afternoon to help, and three rescue boats, including one from his department, were in the water searching throughout the evening.
Search and rescue dogs sniffed along the water’s edge and in the river, as they were stationed on some of the boats.
The Trumbull County Dive Team was at the ready and a medical helicopter hovered over the scene for about 30 minutes, Barrett said.
About 7:30 p.m. Friday, one dog showed interest in a particular area, and the dive team entered the water to search more thoroughly, but found nothing.
Sharon police have questioned several boys who are believed to have been with the missing boy Thursday. An officer did recover a cellphone near the highway that was the same model as the one Goodrich gave to his son, but Goodrich said he couldn’t positively be sure it was the same one.
“I hope my son is just off somewhere, scared because he was hanging out with someone I didn’t want him to be with and because he went somewhere other than his mom’s,” Goodrich said.
As he sat surrounded by friends and family at a gas station, Goodrich looked across Route 62 to where several police officers stood.
“I’m not moving until they find my son,” he said.