WV WV - Timmy 'Rabbit' Vernon, 22, Waiteville, 10 Aug 2014

Timmy Ray "Rabbit" Vernon, 22, of King, was last seen August 9 near Waiteville, W.Va., a few miles north of the Virginia border.

Vernon, who was hunting before his disappearance, used his cell phone to called 911 on August 10, according to police with the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources. He told dispatchers he was lost but not injured...

Vernon stands about 5'6" tall, weighs about 135 pounds and has blue eyes. He was last seen wearing blue jeans, a greenish or turquoise T-shirt, a hat and boots.

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“There’s not much there. It’s big country and National Forest land.” said Captain Larry Case with the law enforcement section of the DNR. “He was at a hunting camp with friends from North Carolina and he walked from the cabin on Saturday afternoon and nobody saw him again.”

A day after leaving the camp, Case said Vernon managed to use his cell phone to call 911 and was able to speak with Natural Resources Police officers on two different occasions. Case said the use of the phone led searchers to conclude he’d made it to a high point on Potts Mountain to get a signal. “They had vehicles set up on different roads and they were hitting their sirens,” said Case. “He was going to walk toward them, but he never walked out and we don’t know why.”

Officers also tried to pinpoint the location of his cell phone using GPS technology. “They were working off a couple of different cell phone pings,” Case said. “That area was searched extensively with our trackers and a couple of different search dogs, but with no luck.”

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Vernon was reportedly on an outdoor adventure with friends when he walked away alone from what Brogan described as “for lack of a better word — a hunting camp.” The officer said investigators found no sign of any sort of altercation at the camp.

He added, “We have some other leads we are following up on. This is a very intense, ongoing investigation”...

Brogan would not speculate on Vernon’s fate, saying only, “We’re just in an investigation mode now.”

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