EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. – A search scheduled for Friday in northwest El Paso County for an 11-year-old Colorado Springs boy who has been missing for a month was abruptly postponed by the sheriff’s office.
In a tweet Thursday afternoon, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office said they would be conducting a search for 11-year-old Gannon Stauch in the area of Highway 105 and Highway 83, just east of Monument.
Nearly three hours later, however, officials said the scheduled search was postponed. The sheriff’s office did not provide an explanation for doing so.
“As we have explained throughout this investigation, this is a very fluid investigation & it can change at any minute of the day,” the sheriff’s office said in the follow-up tweet. “The scheduled search has been postponed. We will keep you in the loop as it happens & as we can release it.”
Gannon was reported missing by his stepmother on Jan. 27 and has not been seen since.
Stauch was last seen on a neighbor’s surveillance video from Lorson Ranch getting into a pickup truck with a person believed to be his stepmother. When the truck returned hours later, Stauch was not seen on the video. His stepmother reported him missing hours later and told authorities he had said he was going to a friend’s house before he went missing.
But days later, authorities changed his suspected runaway case to an endangered/missing persons case.
Since then, El Paso County authorities have taken hundreds of tips and brought in the FBI and Douglas County Sheriff’s Office to search in El Paso and Douglas counties.
The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office says its goal continues to be to find the boy and bring him home safely. Anyone with credible tips is asked to call the sheriff’s office’s tip line at 719-520-6666 or email tips@elpasoco.com.