Family and Searchers Cling to Hope

A discarded candy wrapper, tiny shoeprints on a dirt trail and a hiker’s claim that she heard a child’s faint cries were just a few clues that filled searchers with hope Wednesday but failed to lead them to a 9-year-old boy who disappeared in the San Bernardino Mountains last week.

As the search for a frail David Gonzales entered its fifth day, dirt roads leading to the tiny Hanna Flat campgrounds were clogged with the cars of search volunteers and trucks hauling horse trailers and off-road motorcycles. With the boy’s window of survivability slowly closing, authorities and volunteers said their search had intensified.

Rescuers on foot and horseback combed boulder-studded slopes or followed the noses of search dogs. Helicopter crews hovered over a 10-mile swath of forest and peered into the trees with body-heat-detecting scopes.

“The best guess we’re getting from survival experts we’ve consulted is that if the child is taking care of himself and not overextending himself, he can last seven days out there without water -- perhaps longer if he runs across any water,” San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary Penrod said.

David Gonzales of Lake Elsinore was camping with his parents and their church group Saturday when he said he was going to the truck to get a cookie. He disappeared.

Authorities have collected scores of tips and clues, but none has panned out. Still, searchers and the boy’s family cling to the hope each new sign brings.

“I know my son is alive -- I have to believe that until I see him dead,” said Jose Gonzales, the father.

One of the most hopeful moments Wednesday came when a volunteer from Yucaipa reported hearing a young boy crying, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” Her group also reported seeing small shoeprints around an area of matted vegetation “that looked like the bed an animal makes -- without the animal’s tracks,” said searcher Cindy Huckleberry.

Sushanna Khamis, 39, Huckleberry’s friend and a mother of six, reported hearing a boy’s voice. She said she couldn’t tell where it was coming from because the sounds were faint and overwhelmed by the shouts of other searchers calling the boy’s name and by the engine sounds of the all-terrain vehicles in the area.

“It definitely sounded like a child’s voice. I have a lot of experience hiking and I know animal sounds, plus I have a lot of experience in raising my six children,” Khamis said.

When told of Khamis’ account, Jose Gonzales expressed some skepticism.

“Until the sheriffs tell me they have something concrete, I don’t believe it,” he said. “I want all the news I can get, but I need to believe it.”

Later that afternoon, another group of searchers reported finding almost a dozen small shoeprints along a dirt trail, as well as a discarded Jolly Rancher candy wrapper. Within an hour of their discovery, though, authorities ruled out the possibility that they had belonged to David.

A San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman told reporters that authorities were taking all tips seriously. She said deputies even responded to a phone call reporting that a boy resembling David was seen in Whittier.

“Some of it pans out, a lot of it doesn’t,” said spokeswoman Robin Haynal.

The boy’s family at first had insisted that he might have been kidnapped. But Jose Gonzales said he didn’t want to ask the sheriff to issue an Amber Alert if the department didn’t think it was necessary. Sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Beavers said there was “no sign” of an abduction.

The Sheriff’s Department also called for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and an independent animal tracker contracted by San Bernardino County Animal Control to search the area for wild animals, including mountain lions, bears and coyotes. As the two-day search was ending Wednesday, Jimmie Rizzo of animal control said his search dogs had found no wild animals -- “not anything more than a squirrel.”

“To the best of our ability, there is nothing to indicate wildlife in the area,” Rizzo said. “If one of the dogs found David, he would stay with him.”

Minutes later, the dogs returned to the Hanna Flat camp.

The boy’s disappearance tugged at the emotions of many volunteers, who arrived on their own and hiked for hours in the wild lands. Authorities hadn’t asked for the public’s help, but didn’t turn away the dozens of volunteers.

One of those is Daniel Carnahan, a 65-year-old Llano man who calls himself a “desert historian” and avid hiker. Carnahan arrived in the mountains in his late-model black Lincoln Town Car, rolled a cigarette and began searching with a walking stick he had whittled from a eucalyptus branch he had plucked from the historic Northern California property of author Jack London.

“Why not bring another pair of eyes up here?” Carnahan said. “I have 27 grandchildren who I hike with. I can’t imagine a child alone up here, so frightened. How can you not come here?”

Carnahan was monitoring a police scanner. “Bad news,” he reported. “A mountain lion just crossed the road somewhere.”

With a packed brown satchel and plans to “glass” the mountains by looking down from ridges with binoculars, he said he was convinced David could survive beyond this week, if he avoided predator animals.

Carnahan said the dogs’ failure to find David’s scent made him fearful the child had been abducted by “a two-legged critter.” That, he said is “my greatest fear. I’d rather worry about bears.”