The investigation was about to begin. It would take twenty years to solve.
The Search
Sheriff Lawson’s first assumption was the most hopeful: the family had gone somewhere and would return with a logical explanation. Perhaps a family emergency in another community. Perhaps they’d traveled to a neighboring county for some reason and been delayed.
But as hours turned to days, that hope faded.
“We organized search parties immediately,” Lawson recalls. “We searched the woods surrounding the property, dragged Killbuck Creek thinking maybe there’d been an accident. We checked with relatives in other Amish communities across Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania. Nothing.”
The search involved over 200 volunteers from both Amish and non-Amish communities. They combed through forests, checked abandoned buildings, searched riverbanks. Helicopters with thermal imaging equipment swept the area. Search dogs tracked scents that led nowhere.
“The dogs were the strangest part,” says Mark Thompson, who trained the search dogs used in the investigation. “They’d pick up the family’s scent from clothes in the house, then track to the road at the end of the property, and that’s where the trail ended. Just stopped, like they’d gotten into a vehicle. But the Amish don’t use cars.”
