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February 21, 2009

Investigation into missing teen resumes today

By Jamie Jones

Collin Parrish was one of the last people to see his friend Brett Thomason.

From early morning Friday and into the night, scores of people were searching for Thomason, hoping to see him again after he went missing during a Thursday evening boat jaunt on the Conasauga River in south Whitfield County.

About 60 officials from a myriad of emergency service groups along with close to 75 of Thomason’s friends and family spent the morning, day and night canvassing a 5-mile area from Riverbend Road to Tilton Bridge Road. They used helicopters, four-wheelers, boats, trucks and their own feet as they painstakingly — and in emotional pain — looked for Thomason, who family members described as an “inexperienced” boater.

“It’s still a full-steam rescue operation right now until it’s proven otherwise that we need to go in a different path,” Jeffrey Putnam, director of Whitfield County Emergency Services, said late Friday afternoon shortly before the search was suspended due to darkness. “We are looking at all options.”

The search is expected to resume this morning at 7.

The 19-year-old Thomason, a 2008 graduate of Southeast High School, is approximately 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs between 150 and 160 pounds. He has brown hair and a military-style haircut. Anyone with information about Thomason’s whereabouts is asked to call 911.

“He’s got a good heart, he’s a good person,” said Natasha Thomason, Brett’s older sister. “There’s just nothing bad to say about him. He deserves to be found more than anything. He has to be found, whether it’s dead or alive, he has to be found. I miss him and I want to see him again.”

Thomason didn’t return from the boating trip with two other teenagers. At about 12:45 a.m. Friday, his family called 911 to report he had not returned from the trip. The search started about 15 minutes later. A Georgia State Patrol helicopter used Forward Looking Infrared Radar and Erlanger’s Life-Force helicopter joined in the search.

At about 4:30 a.m. Friday, rescue crews found the 10-foot non-motorized, jon boat pulled onto a bank about five miles north of Tilton Bridge Road in the area of Stanley Road. In the boat were wet clothes, which Putnam said belong to two other teenagers in the boat with Thomason. One of the oars was in the boat, while the other oar was found close by in a field.

The two other teenagers in the boat with Thomason — Macie Hinman and Collin Parrish — were not injured. Hinman and Parrish are on winter break from Southeast this week.

“We just went out wanting to have some fun,” said Parrish, a 15-year-old sophomore.

The trio set the boat in the river near Thomason’s father’s house close to Riverbend Road at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, just as the sun was setting. They meandered along the winding river in the boat for about two hours. The temperature had fallen into the low 30s and the darkness had cut visibility significantly.

“It was getting dark and Macey had to get home, so we got out,” Parrish said. “Brett wanted to park the boat. Macey made it home and I went to the house.”

Thomason told Parrish he was going to float the boat down the river and pull it out because his father worried about the boat being damaged. He stopped the boat near a hill on the river bank and let the two out. Parrish’s last words to Thomason: “I said, ‘OK, we’re going this way,” Parrish said.

“I assume he pulled the boat up on a hill,” Parrish said. “I don’t know if he got lost or something.”

They didn’t make plans to meet. He said Thomason seemed to be fine. Parrish and Hinman walked to a road.

“I’m sure we can find him,” Parrish said. “He’s a tough kid. I mean, he can survive.”

Family, friends and authorities were baffled as to what happened to Thomason. They said he was well-liked and had not had any confrontations with anyone lately. He was also described as a strong athlete, having participated in football, baseball and track at Southeast.

Family members said Thomason had enlisted with the Marines and was headed to boot camp in Parris Island, S.C., in mid-April. His mother, Dana Massey, said Thomason never wavered in his decision to join the military and doubted he was trying to skirt going into service.

“He wanted to serve his country,” said Massey, who had been on the scene since 10 p.m. Thursday. “I was all against him going and he said, ‘Mom, other people have to let their kids go, they can’t be selfish, so you’re going to not have to be selfish. It’s something I want to do.’”

Authorities originally centered the search near Tilton Bridge Road. By 10 a.m. Friday, they relocated the operations base to the parking lot of Riverbend Baptist Church. Whitfield County’s mobile command unit was joined by members of the Whitfield County Fire Department, Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office, state Department of Natural Resources and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Whitfield County Emergency Services used the Reverse 911 system to contact more than 200 residents in a two-mile radius between Hickory Flats Road and Riverbend Road.

Sgt. John Vanlandingham with the state DNR said crews had searched about six miles of the Conasauga River by boat with an underwater camera. They also searched the river banks above where the boat was put in to where the boat was found. Today, they planned to moved downstream from where the boat was found and cover three or four more miles

Search crews plan to use search dogs today. The dogs will work off scents from Thomason’s clothing. They are also trained to smell cadavers, Vanlandingham said.

“You always keep your options open and you always treat everything as a crime scene until you know better,” Vanlandingham said. “We’re looking into whether an accident occurred, foul play has occurred, somebody is simply lost in the water or on the banks somewhere or the possibility that somebody could have even staged something and left the area. We’re trying to check into everything we can.”

As the day wore on and news spread through the community, friends wanting to help out trickled into the church’s gravel parking lot. A church member pitched in by unlocking the door, giving searchers refuge from the cold and a place to pray. At about 1 p.m., several cars and trucks rambled in off Riverbend Road. Friends and families formed groups of four to eight people and searched the area.

Blake Powers, an 18-year-old senior at Southeast, joined the search. He said he and Thomason have been close friends since middle school. Powers had spent the night at Parrish’s brother’s home and heard the news of Thomason’s disappearance early Friday morning.

“It is frustrating because you don’t know what it is, if he is somewhere fine or something’s happened to him,” Powers said. “It was cold last night, anything could have went wrong. He could have fallen in. I mean, we’re all young. It could have been anything.”

Powers was one of the many Southeast students that joined a volunteer search Friday afternoon, scouring fields and river banks in the area.

“You hope for the best, but you’ve got to expect the worst,” Powers said.

Putnam said he was not encouraging a large-scale volunteer search because the dogs could be thrown off Thomason’s scent. If the dogs don’t find Thomason, Putnam will give the OK for a community-wide search.

“I’m all for them, I think they’re great,” Putnam said. “We haven’t got to that point yet. It’s hard for the family and I understand that. We try to keep them in consideration and keep them informed and let them help us where we can. It does make them feel better doing something rather than sitting at home.”

Family members held out hope they will find Thomason unharmed.

Brianna Thomason, his 11-year-old sister, said she last saw him on Tuesday. He came by her house at about 4 p.m. on Thursday, but she was in the shower. She said he hadn’t talked about a boat trip.

“He’s really country,” Brianna Thomason said. “He’ll get out and do a lot of things. He’s never been sailing in a boat down the river or anything like that, but he’s been fishing and stuff down here. That’s pretty much it.”

As night neared and temperatures began to dip into the 30s, his mother voiced grave concern.

“The longer it gets the chances are going to get slimmer,” Massey said.