Authorities searching for 10-year-old boy who disappeared in Poweshiek County

Authorities are searching for a 10-year-old boy who went missing from a mobile home park in Poweshiek County on Thursday morning.

Xavior Harrelson was last seen around 11 a.m. Thursday in Montezuma, according to the Poweshiek County Sheriff’s Office.

He was last seen wearing a red T-shirt, blue pajama pants and black high-top shoes. He has brown hair and blue eyes and is about 4 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs 100 pounds.

The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation joined the investigation Friday.

Xavior left his home in the Spruce Village Mobile Home Park and has not been seen since, Assistant DCI Director Mitch Mortvedt said. The boy’s mother believed Xavior had gone out to play with friends, he said.

“Obviously, we’re very concerned,” Mortvedt said. “This is a young boy — he’s only 10 years old — and he’s been missing for more than 24 hours.”

The mobile home park is in northwest Montezuma, less than half a mile from Diamond Lake County Park, which Mortvedt described as a “vast wooded area.”

Mortvedt said it’s unknown if there is any criminal aspect to the boy’s disappearance, “but we are treating it like there is and deploying as many resources as we can to find him.”

“All we know right now is that he left his house Thursday morning of his own accord, and he’s been missing ever since,” Mortvedt said. “Of course, we hope there is nothing criminal going on, and that he’s found safely.”

Approximately two dozen to three dozen officers from the Poweshiek County Sheriff’s Office, the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office, the DCI and other agencies are searching for Xavior, Mortvedt said.

“Right now, we are double- and triple-checking his friends’ houses and the places he is known to hang out. We are canvassing the immediate areas and knocking on doors and talking to people, and we’ll expand the search from there if we need to,” he said.

Mortvedt said Xavior is known as a “good, well-behaved, well-mannered kid who got along and fit in with other kids his age, but was also very quiet.

“We don’t believe it is typical or normal behavior for him to disappear,” he said. “So the fact that no one has seen him, and he’s not in any of the places we’d expect to find him, is suspicious, and we’re obviously concerned.”

Mortvedt was also heavily involved in the search for Mollie Tibbetts, the 20-year-old University of Iowa student who disappeared while on a run in Brooklyn, Iowa, in Poweshiek County, on July 18, 2018.

Her body was found a month later, in a cornfield near Guernsey. A jury on Friday found Cristhian Bahena Rivera guilty in her murder.

“Obviously, the Tibbetts’ case is in the back of our minds as that trial is going on, and here we are looking for another missing kid in Poweshiek County,” he said.

Currently, authorities are not asking for public assistance in forming search parties, Mortvedt said. But they are asking that anyone who has seen Xavior or who has information regarding his whereabouts call the Poweshiek County Sheriff’s Office at (641) 623-5679.

Comments: (319) 398-8238; kat.russell@thegazette.com.