A local man traveled across the country this week to search for his young son who disappeared last Saturday in Washington state. Jay Carver of Lancaster hopped on the first flight he could after finding out on Monday that Azriel, 8, and the boy's mother Shantina Smiley, 29, were missing. The trail of the mother and son goes cold along the water outside Olympia, Washington where searchers found her minivan stuck in the mud with the doors open and Smiley's wallet still inside.
"I know they (police) went through that area with a fine tooth comb but I still need to see exactly what the situation is for my piece of mind," Jay Carver told Eyewitness News by phone from Washington, "Then hopefully possibly go from there, try to drum up more leads as to what could have possibly happened because nothing is making sense at all."
The missing woman's fiance, Robb Simmons, says Shantina Smiley is a recovering alcoholic and she suffered a relapse a week ago. She was on her way to see her stepfather but police now think Smiley was traveling the wrong direction just before vanishing. Investigators are retracing Smiley's and Azriel's steps and found that at 7:50 p.m. surveillance cameras captured the mother and son at a place called the "Handy Pantry." By 9:08 p.m. she purchased a hot dot at a diner but left without taking it. Witnesses say they saw her trip and hurt her knee in the parking lot. Around 10:00 p.m. Smiley and her son knocked on the door of a house to ask for directions. The man at the house says he let them use his phone and that appears to be the last time anyone saw the woman and boy.
Because Jay Carver lives in Western New York he hasn't been able to spend a lot of time in person with his son in recent years, but he describes Azriel as a smart boy with a great sense of humor. "He's a good kid," says Carver, "He's a cub scout and I'm just hoping maybe through the cub scouts if he is lost in the woods they might have shown him something where it could help him cause it's been about four days now and it's terrible."
Dive teams had been searching a pond where the minivan was found, but Wednesday evening police called off the official search. Jay Carver along with friends and other family members though will continue the search effort.
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