Authorities re-evaluating search for missing 11-year-old Xavior Harrelson

After a weekend of dead ends, authorities said they are re-evaluating their search for Xavior Harrelson, the 11-year-old boy who disappeared from a Montezuma mobile home park last week.

Xavior was last seen around 11 a.m. Thursday in Montezuma, wearing a red T-shirt, blue pajama pants and black high-top shoes, according to the Poweshiek County Sheriff’s Office. He has brown hair and blue eyes, is about 4-foot-8 and weighs 100 pounds.

Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said Xavior left his home in the Spruce Village Mobile Home Park and has not been seen since. The boy’s mother thought Xavior had gone out to play with friends, he said.

The mobile home park is less than a mile from Diamond Lake County Park, which features more than 660 acres of wooded land, a 90-acre lake and roughly 120 campsites.

Since the boy’s disappearance, Mortvedt said authorities have deployed people, dogs, horses, all-terrain vehicles, drones, aircraft, heat sensors and divers.

Now, Mortvedt said, authorities are working on developing new leads.

“All we really know for sure right now is that Xavior was reported missing on Thursday and we know what he was possibly wearing when he left the house,” Mortvedt said. “Other than that, we don’t know anything for sure.”

It’s not clear whether Xavior wandered off and got lost after he left his house, ran away or was taken, Mortvedt added.

“It’s certainly suspicious that he seems to have just disappeared and no one has seen him,” he said. “But there is no evidence that is definitively pushing the needle one way or another. There is nothing to indicate that his disappearance was criminal, though we are certainly looking at that angle.”

On Saturday authorities searched within a half-mile radius of the boy’s residence, including parts of Diamond Lake County Park, Mortvedt said.

On Sunday, after a plea to the public for volunteers, roughly 500 people — 375 volunteers and 125 law enforcement officers and first responders — searched within a mile radius, but turned up nothing.

“We covered a lot of ground over the weekend,” Mortvedt said. “Having so many volunteers was a big help. We were able to cover a larger area much quicker. As far as the more rural areas, we were able to cover a lot of those with planes and drones over the last few days, as well as with people, ATVs and search and rescue crews on the ground. Unfortunately, you know, we weren’t able to locate Xavior and we didn’t find anything of evidentiary value.”

Authorities now are asking residents and businesses with video surveillance systems in the area to share their footage with investigators. Residents also are being asked to check their own properties.

“Right now, all we can do is keep looking, keep examining leads and keep following up on any information that we get,” Mortvedt said. “I feel confident that we have thoroughly searched all the areas where he was likely to go or be found, so now it’s time to move on to other parts of the investigation — re-examining leads, developing new information and identifying areas outside of those we’ve already searched.”

Investigators are hopeful Xavior is still alive and will be found soon.

“We’re talking about a young kid with few resources and likely few survival skills, so every hour, every day that goes by is more worrisome,” Mortvedt said.

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