DeOrr Kunz Jr.

Timber Creek Campground is a small, remote campsite in the mountains of east-central Idaho, at the end of a long dirt road, surrounded by sagebrush hills, aspen groves and pine forest. There’s a creek, a few campsites, and not much else. The nearest town, Leadore, has a population of about a hundred people.

On the afternoon of July 10, 2015, a two-year-old boy named DeOrr Kunz Jr. was at that campground with his family.

Within a few minutes, he was gone.

Despite one of the largest searches in Idaho history, no trace of him has ever been found.

The Camping Trip

DeOrr — everyone called him “Little DeOrr” — was a toddler from Idaho Falls, about two and a half feet tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. On that July weekend, he had come to the campground with his parents, Jessica Mitchell and Vernal DeOrr Kunz; his mother’s grandfather, Robert Walton; and a family friend of Walton’s.

According to the accounts the family gave, the group arrived at the campground and set up camp. Sometime in the afternoon, the parents went to walk along the creek, and believed DeOrr was with his great-grandfather. His great-grandfather believed the boy was with his parents. When they all came back together a few minutes later, no one had him.

The family searched frantically. Then they called 911.

The Search

The search for DeOrr Kunz Jr. was enormous. Over the following days and weeks, hundreds of people took part: sheriff’s deputies, search and rescue teams, the FBI, volunteers from across Idaho, dog teams, divers, helicopters, drones and specialists with thermal imaging. They searched the creek, the brush, the hills and the forest around the campground. They searched outhouses and abandoned mines.

They found nothing. Not a shoe, not a piece of clothing, not a footprint.

A toddler on foot couldn’t have gone very far in a few minutes. The campground was surrounded by open terrain in some directions and dense brush in others. Searchers believed that if DeOrr had wandered off, they should have found him.

The Suspicions

As the weeks went by, the investigation turned toward the people who had been at the campground.

The Lemhi County sheriff said publicly that investigators had found inconsistencies in the accounts given by the adults who were there. The parents took polygraph tests. Investigators said they had ruled out a wild animal attack and an abduction by a stranger. In 2016, the sheriff publicly named DeOrr’s parents as suspects in their son’s disappearance, and said he believed the case was moving toward being a homicide. He said investigators weren’t even convinced the boy had been at the campground that day.

The parents denied any involvement and said they had nothing to do with their son’s disappearance. Their attorney called the sheriff’s homicide claims false, and insisted that DeOrr had been at the campground with the family. The family friend who was present was described by investigators as cooperative.

Neither of DeOrr’s parents has ever been arrested or charged in connection with his disappearance. Everyone involved is presumed innocent.

The Theories

Many theories have been proposed over the years.

Some believe DeOrr wandered off into the brush or fell into the creek, and that his body was simply never found, despite the searches.

Some believe he was taken by an animal — a mountain lion or a bird of prey — though investigators said they found no evidence of that.

Some believe he was abducted, either by someone passing through the remote area or by someone who knew the family.

And some, including investigators at one point, believe that something happened to him before or after the family arrived at the campground, and that the adults’ accounts don’t tell the whole story.

None of these theories has been proven.

The Boy

It’s easy to get lost in the questions about the adults in this case. I want to come back to the boy.

DeOrr was two years old. He loved to play outside. In photographs, he has a wide smile and wispy blond hair. He was the kind of little boy who would run after a butterfly or wander toward a stream without a second thought. Whatever happened to him, he didn’t deserve it.