FRUITLAND, Idaho —
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
It’s been more than four months since 5-year-old Michael Vaughan went missing in Fruitland on July 27 and his mother is adamant she does not want his case to go cold – she wants him home.
Brandi Neal, Michael’s mother, sat on her couch in her home in Fruitland on Thursday, where she played with her 2-year-old daughter Arya’s hair. A blanket with Michael’s face printed on it rested on the couch beside her.
Neal, surrounded by pictures of Michael and her family, stressed her son’s face should not fade from the public eye.
“I don’t feel like he is getting the attention he deserves,” Neal told the Idaho Press. “I don’t want his case to go cold. I want him home. I want every single person in this world to see his beautiful face and know exactly where he belongs.”
Michael Vaughan is an energetic, young, blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy who enjoys camping, monster trucks, cars, playing in the dirt, and especially loves his little sister, Arya, Brandi Neal said.
She added that after Michael went missing from the family’s neighborhood she could barely watch the construction nearby, as it made her ache for Michael — who they nicknamed “monkey.”
“They had been doing road construction down (Highway) 33. I just sat there and watched all the trucks. He would have been over the moon,” she said.
DISAPPEARANCE
The day Michael disappeared, Neal said, he didn’t want her to go to work — which is something that sticks with her.
Michael had been in the family’s living room playing a game on his Nintendo the day he vanished. Neal said at 6:40 p.m. Michael’s father, Tyler Vaughan, went to check on Arya in her bedroom and order a pizza for 15-20 minutes. When he came back, Michael was gone.
Neal said her husband frantically called her at work to tell her he couldn’t find Michael. Neal sped home, she said, where she was met with police cars and neighbors standing outside their houses.
“It was all just a big blur,” Neal said. She sped back and forth down the neighborhood streets, asking if people had seen Michael while Tyler spoke to law enforcement.
“I’m just screaming that he didn’t wander off, there’s no way in hell,” Neal said.
Neal said neighbors witnessed Michael knocking on doors in the moments before he disappeared. She can’t explain why, but said he is a friendly child.
The community came out to look for Michael that night, Neal said. Residents lined the streets, and police were in farm fields next to her residence, relentlessly combing the area.
K-9 dogs searched the area as well, according to Neal, where they were able to track Michael’s scent — it led to the end of their street, away from the farm field to the right of the house, and stopped abruptly.
Neal assumes Michael had gone out the side garage door which leads to the front yard, and wandered from there.
“For him to be seen by neighbors outside of their home, he went out the garage to the front,” she told the Idaho Press in a separate phone interview.
In a press conference held on Nov. 19, Fruitland Police Chief J.D. Huff said there is an increased probability Michael was abducted in large part because the agency has made no headway in ground searches. Fruitland Police, the FBI, and other investigating agencies have combed through thousands of acres and found nothing relating to Michael. They have searched with helicopters, drones, boats, divers, dogs and on foot, according to Huff, and are following every lead.
Michael’s family has also been working closely with police and complying with investigative requests, according to Huff.
Jennifer Coffindaffer, a retired FBI agent who consulted the media during the bureau’s widely publicized investigation into the death of Gabby Petito, told the Idaho Press in a phone interview that she believes Michael is of the very small percentage of kids who are subject to stranger abductions, which according to Coffindaffer is about 4%.
“I believe over 60, 62% of stranger abductions occur right by the residence,” Coffindaffer said.
Michael has yet to be located as of early December, but Fruitland Police are trying to identify the owner of a 2016-2020 white Honda Pilot that was a street over from the Vaughan’s residence at 6:47 p.m., and a man with dark hair, wearing a white t-shirt and black shorts seen walking off Southwest Eighth Street around the time of Michael’s disappearance.
“We will not stop searching and investigating his disappearance until we find Michael and bring him home,” the Fruitland Police Department said in a Facebook post.
AMBER ALERT
Twitter users from around the country are honing in on Michael’s case, pushing for an Amber Alert they believe should still be enacted to spread the word of Michael’s disappearance.
Robert Downer is a missing-person blogger from Michigan. He has been following Michael’s case closely, along with other Twitter users from states such as Ohio, Florida, and Alabama. Downer and other Twitter users he collaborates with to get word out about Michael’s disappearance are advocating for Idaho State Police to issue an Amber Alert on Michael.
“There is a public outcry right now about Michael Vaughan,” Downer said. “His mother is devastated and heartbroken, and we are all heartbroken with her.”
An Amber Alert, a child abduction emergency alert, was not issued in Michael’s case because it does not meet Idaho’s criteria — which is a child is known by law enforcement to have been abducted, and the abduction occurred within 12 hours of initial activation of AMBER Alert, according to the Idaho State Police Amber Alert activation checklist.
Neal said Fruitland Police and the lead detective on Michael’s case fought for an Amber Alert — one around 8 p.m. and one around 11 p.m.
”The highest probability at the time of notification was that he wandered off,” Huff, the Fruitland police chief, said in an email to the Idaho Press. “As a result, we did not meet several of the criteria necessary for the Amber Alert. I’m sorry to report that we still do not meet the criteria.”
Law enforcement was able to access the Missing and Endangered Children Alerts and Fruitland’s local alerting system, CodeRed, was used to notify citizens from Payette, Fruitland and New Plymouth, according to Huff.
Neal said she and her husband Tyler would like to get the Amber Alert activation criteria changed. Other states have similar criteria — in states like Oregon, law enforcement must “reasonably believe” the child has been abducted, but in Idaho, an abduction has to be known.
”I believe law enforcement should be able to use that to their discretion. Especially if they’ve done a criminal investigation, and especially in the first 12 hours,” Neal said.
WAITING FOR MICHAEL
Neal’s daughter Arya has just begun playing with toys again after Michael’s disappearance, Neal said, and she loves to play with Michael’s monster trucks.
“She actually dumped the basket out and destroyed the living room. That hasn’t happened in months,” Neal said.
Neal said she rarely leaves her house anymore — on Thursday, she said she only worked one day that week. Every time police dogs are running through the fields again, Neal said she becomes emotional.
“I know now what PTSD truly is,” she said.
Her oldest daughter, Kira, didn’t want a birthday this year in light of Michael being gone, Neal said, but the Fruitland Police texted her happy birthday, and brought gifts to Arya’s second birthday party. The Fruitland Police Department also came to rake leaves at the Vaughan residence for Arya to jump in.
“They truly have become family,” she said.
Neal said she wants everyone who will listen to know this case is not about anything else but bringing Michael home.
“It’s not about anybody else,” Neal said. “It’s about Michael.”
Michael will be 6 years old on June 24, 2022.
Anyone with any information is urged to contact the Fruitland Police Department at 208-642-6006, extension 0 or contact the department through its tip line at findmichael@fruitland.org. A tip leading to Vaughan’s safe return will be rewarded with $50,100. The reward is available through March 2022.
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press. Read more at IdahoPress.com
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