Published: May 07, 2008 08:21 am            

Missing Woodward boy found alive and well

“Thank God.”

That is what Deborah Underhill had to say Tuesday afternoon after her adopted son Alex Underhill was finally located at a trailer house southwest of Woodward.

The boy, who is 12-years-old, had been missing since he ran away from home around 10 p.m. Friday, Woodward Police Det. Lt. Chuck Wheeler said. He walked from where he lived in an apartment complex on 34th Street to a location approximately “two miles south of Woodward and back west,” Wheeler said.

“He had been staying in some trees,” the detective said. “He called them ‘the woods.’”

Alex may have chosen the area because it was near a trailer home where a friend lived, Wheeler said.

“When the storm came through last night, he took shelter under the trailer,” he said.

However, none of the trailer’s residents knew Alex was in the area until Tuesday afternoon, when he had knocked on one of the trailer’s windows and got his friend to let him inside, Wheeler said.

After a while the friend’s father thought he heard his kids fighting and walked back to their bedroom to find out what was going on, he said.

“When he opened the door, he found Alex,” Wheeler said.

Knowing the boy had been missing, the man contacted Underhill to let her know where Alex was.

“I almost had a panic attack,” Underhill said about her reaction when she got the call around 3 p.m. “I was so excited and I wanted to get there before (Alex) took off.”

Once there, she said, “I hugged (Alex) and told him he about scared 10 years off me.”

After she was notified of Alex’s whereabouts, Underhill had immediately contacted the police to let them know.

Once the police arrived on scene they took Alex into custody, Wheeler said.

The boy was then turned over to Juvenile Services, he said, noting “they will probably do an intake and ascertain if there is some situation why he can’t go home or send him back to his mother.”

Other than being a little dirty and hungry, Wheeler said the boy was “in good condition” when he was taken into custody.

And he said Juvenile Services would “get him cleaned up and fed.”

Wheeler said he and the other detectives were “relieved” that Alex was found safe and sound.

“We were really starting to get concerned,” he said. “Because we’d been out looking for him all day and had about exhausted every lead.”

“We’re grateful there was a positive end to this,” Wheeler said.

“I’m excited that he’s found, that he’s safe and going to be coming home soon, I hope,” Underhill said.

And besides thanking God, she said she wants to extend “a lot of thanks to everybody who helped look for Alex.”

        

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