About 45 law-enforcement personnel spent five days in the last week searching a 12-mile stretch of Middle Mountain Road looking for clues into the November 2012 disappearance of Dylan Redwine.
A variety of items were collected during the search, in which people combed the area, at times almost shoulder-to-shoulder, said Dan Bender, a spokesman with the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office, in a news release issued Wednesday night.
“The reason for the five-day search was the type of terrain,” Bender said in a phone interview. “It’s heavily timbered, with lots of underbrush and falloffs to drainage. The search area varies from hundreds of feet off the road to five feet off the road you have cliffs.”
Further investigation, interviews and laboratory testing will determine if any of the items are related to the Redwine disappearance, Bender said in the news release.
Bender said the office will not comment on the type of items found nor their condition.
The search, which started Saturday, originally was planned to be a two-day affair, but Bender said once personnel got on scene, they realized the job would have to expand. Searchers completed work Wednesday afternoon, Bender said.
Redwine, who now would be 14, was reported missing Nov. 19, 2012, by his mother, Elaine Redwine, who lives in the Colorado Springs area. He was staying with his father, Mark Redwine, in Vallecito during a court-ordered visitation during the Thanksgiving Day holiday.
The case has drawn national attention, including an appearance on the “Dr. Phil” show. During the show, Elaine Redwine and Mark Redwine engaged in heated confrontation with both accusing the other of responsibility for their son’s disappearance.
Bender said investigators have a list of items they are looking for that has been developed through the course of the investigation, but he wouldn’t comment on details of items of interest to the case.
No particular clue prompted the Middle Mountain Road search, he said. He described the search of the road, north of Vallecito Reservoir, as part of the continuing investigation.
Bender was unsure if items discovered in the search were being sent to various laboratories or just to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. He was unsure when results from laboratory analysis would be ready for investigators, but he said the Sheriff’s Office may not publicly release the lab findings.
Completion of the latest search comes as Bender said media calls from New York and Denver have spiked concerning rumors related to Redwine’s disappearance, but Bender said he has not commented on any details of the investigation to any news organization or media outlet.
The Middle Mountain Road search is not the first multiple-day search related to the investigation, Bender said. He said the Sheriff’s Office spent five days building a dam to search the reservoir, and he said searches have occurred weekly since the snow melted.
patrick@durangoherald.com
