Police have new leads to missing Idaho boy Robert Manwill
Robert Manwill (8) - reported missing from his Boise, ID home 07/24/09, and has been the subject of a massive search ever since. Police have not named a suspect, but the investigation appears to have shifted to one of a criminal nature as well as an effort to find the boy
Boise, ID
Investigators have new leads into the disappearance of an 8-year-old boy more than a week ago, police in Boise, Idaho, said Saturday.
Jim Kerns, the deputy police chief, said investigators narrowed their areas of interest in the search for Robert Manwill. He said “one of many areas of interest” is a residence in southwest Boise, but he wouldn’t say why.
“We believe that Robert may be the victim of a tragic event. Our leads are narrowing and are becoming more specific,” Kerns said.
Ground-penetrating radar borrowed from Boise State University is being used in the investigation, the Idaho Press reported.
Police searched a southwest Boise residence and closed off a section of a landfill Saturday as they continued looking for an 8-year-old boy who went missing more than a week ago.
Robert Manwill reportedly disappeared July 24 after leaving his mother’s apartment in Boise, where he was visiting. Deputy Chief Jim Kerns has said evidence in the case indicated the boy could be hurt “or the victim of a tragic event.”
On Friday and Saturday, investigators searched a southwest Boise home. They began digging in the backyard after dogs picked up a scent, said Evan Wallis, who owns the house.
On Thursday night, police searched Manwill’s mother’s apartment, where the boy was visiting.
Wallis said he knows the boy’s family but doesn’t understand why police are searching the rental property, which is near Five Mile Road in Boise.
“I’m innocent,” Wallis told the Idaho Statesman newspaper. “I’m an innocent bystander.”
Chief Kerns said at a press conference Saturday that the residence is one of many areas of interest in the case. Police, so far, say there have been no arrests or suspects in the case.
“It makes me sick to know this is going down at my house right now,” said Wallis, who was out of town last weekend and returned Monday. “I’m not going to say for the record nothing’s back there because I don’t know. Maybe something did happen along the lines when I was out of town.”
The renters of the home told KTVB-TV they knew the Manwills.
The night he disappeared, the boy was visiting his mother, Melissa Scott Jenkins. The boy’s father, Charles Manwill, has had custody of him since 2008.
Friday evening and Saturday morning, authorities looking for 8-year-old Robert Manwill focused their efforts on Evan Wallis’ Boise home and blue Suburban
“I was devastated that my truck was being considered part of this case with Robert,” Wallis said.The Homeowner, Wallis, says he has three boys of his own and is an innocent bystander in the investigation.
Wallis says he welcomed authorities to his backyard to search for anything that may lead them to the little boy.
“I have complete cooperation with them because it is a little boy that needs to be found,” he said.
Wallis says police searched his home after bloodhounds picked up a scent on his Suburban. He says his truck was stolen on July 22, just two days before Robert disappeared. Then it turned back up on Monday and Wallis notified the Ada County Sheriff’s Office.
“And that’s what lead them to come back here and get a warrant to come dig up our backyard,” Wallis said. “I told them go ahead just as long as you just leave things the way they were when you’re done.”
At a news conference earlier this afternoon, Boise Deputy Chief Jim Kerns says he couldn’t tell CBS 2 anything about the search on Wallis’ property, and they’re looking into more than 300 tips.
“At this point the investigation to find Robert is an hour by hour effort,” Kerns said. “The lead detectives are constantly evaluating evidence and focusing resources.”
Wallis says the only thing investigators were going to find in his home were freshly dug dirt from grass he was planting and a few tree stumps.
Volunteers wearing orange safety vests and carrying plenty of water walked Boise sidewalks and streets Friday, sticking to public property. At the end of the day, they had come up empty-handed in the search for 8-year-old Robert Manwill.
After a day of rapid developments into the search for missing boy Robert Manwill, the news again slowed to a crawl Saturday.
Boise Police Deputy Chief Jim Kerns told media during a noon briefing that the search is still ongoing, and has become “more focused,” after a widespread effort involved more than 2,300 volunteers Friday.
Investigators spent much of Friday night and early Saturday searching a home on Southdale St. in S. Ada County, but those efforts ended at about 10:30 a.m. Saturday with no announced outcome. Kerns said the Southdale location is just one of a number of areas being looked at.
Kerns says a number of tips continue to pour in by phone, e-mail and U.S. Mail - more than 300 in all. He said a large amount of evidence has been collected, but they cannot detail what that evidence includes.
He said activity will continue by the hour throughout the weekend.
Source: Idaho Statesman, KBCI-TV , crime news 2000 article
Another tragedy, such cute kid, and unfortunate to have parents who failed to provide a secure home for him. He was “visiting” his mother, who was on probation for fracturing the skull of her youngest child in what she claimed whas an accident. Poor poor young boy who deserved a better life with at least one responsible parent who would want him, love him, and care for him. :emotion:
The laws in this country need revised when it comes to child custody and visitation! This woman should have been supervised at the least! How long are we going to defend parental rights???? What about the right to be secure, happy, loved and the right to LIFE that every child so deserves?!!!! I am so saddened by this story and every child ABUSE/NEGLECT and MURDER story which we hear all too often!!! I will pray for the best and keep Robert in my heart! :emotion:
NOOOO, boy found in canal behind rental house that was searched per HLN Mike G, in a blue shirt….
They have found the body of a boy in a canal…No ID as of yet…Here is the link….
http://www.idahostatesman.com/235/story/854612.html?storylink=omni_popular
Body Matching Missing Idaho Boy Found
http://www.wesh.com/video/20273678/index.html
Judge Cathleen Macgregor Irby, is the one who ordered unsupervised visits, she will have to live with that decision, and may she never forget the young childs life that was lost due to that decision.
Wake up judges! two years probation for fracturing a childs skull! The mother was able to plead down to injury to a child from charges of felony child abuse.
Thankfully that child is in protective custody. My oh my, no one is watching over these helpless children. Certainly not our courts.
Seems to me that judges in this country have knowledge of the law but no wisdom. Where are these idiots coming from????
Get your facts straight before you start with that. The state, because there was not sufficient evidence to support their felony case, lowered the charges. The Judge did everything she legally had the power to do. Should she have senteced her to jail time? I don’t think so, that would just tie up the courts when the family sues for wrongful imprisonment. I understand how frustrated everyone is, but the law is the law.
>Judge Cathleen Macgregor Irby, is the one who ordered unsupervised visits, she will have to live with >that decision, and may she never forget the young childs life that was lost due to that decision.
>Wake up judges! two years probation for fracturing a childs skull! The mother was able to plead down >to injury to a child from charges of felony child abuse.
>Thankfully that child is in protective custody. My oh my, no one is watching over these helpless >children. Certainly not our courts.
Daveyboy760 what about putting this “mother” in for some psychiatric tests? There are many ways to keep a sick mother from having her child long enough to cause damage. What about some supervised short visits? I think the judge could have been a little more creative. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Oh well, let her go and see her in court later for murder.
Daveyboy760 - These bleeding hearts make laws that protect the wrong people. The police work hard to arrest and bring to trial criminals. Then these “judges” don’t do enough to keep the criminals locked up. They are able to plead down. Is it any wonder these loons are not afraid to kill, molest, threaten, etc.???:worried: