More than 20 Missouri State Highway Patrol vehicles were parked in a one-block radius surrounding the home where the kidnapping occurred.
Also on the scene were officers from Webb City, Carl Junction, Joplin and the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department. Law enforcement academy students from Missouri Southern State University were also on the scene.
Patrol Spokesman Sgt. Mike Watson said he didn’t have an exact count of how many officers were on the scene but the officers were divided into teams and fanning out across the area surrounding the home.
“This is still an active search, we’re still looking for this child in this neighborhood,” Watson said. “The students give us extra eyes and we are able to cover more ground than we could with just the officers on the scene.”
Watson said police had scheduled a press conference for 2 p.m. today at Memorial Hall in Carthage where they hoped to release more details about the incident.
A nice family
Boswell, who said she’s lived in the neighborhood for 30 years, said she had met the man and woman and a toddler who lived in the home next door a number of times and they seemed like nice people.
She said she spoke to the father more often than the mother because she didn’t speak English and he did.
“He was real friendly and she would always wave when I saw her,” Boswell said. “They were nice people. He had a boxer puppy and I came out and talked with him about puppies a few times.”
Boswell said the family moved into the home last summer. She had met a toddler but had never met the baby.
“This is a quiet neighborhood, never too much of a ruckus here,” Boswell said. “The man who lived in that house before this family had heart trouble and we’d see an ambulance there some times. We also had a fire back behind my house a few years back but that’s about it.”
Boswell said she saw a tow truck come in early Friday morning and take the family’s car.
“I just hope that family’s alright and they find that boy okay,” she said. “It’s scary. I’ve got grandkids and it’s just scary.”
http://www.carthagepress.com/news/x655689910/UPDATED-CARTHAGE-CHILD-KIDNAPPED