After 10 days of searching, the large-scale efforts to find a missing 21-month old Jacksonville boy will wind down Sunday night.
Investigators said they’ve been double and triple checking certain areas for Lonzie Barton, now it’s time to step back and review their search efforts.
Investigators have combed through more than 60 ponds and a total of about 40 square miles, since July 24th.
Meanwhile, after double and triple checking tips, the Chief of Investigations for the Jacksonville’s Sheriff’s Office said it time to step back and review their efforts in the Amber Alert case.
“As things kind of wrap up today that will stop what you see as the large scale, obvious effort that we have,” share Tom Hackney, who serves as the Chief of Investigations for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Meanwhile, investigators said they are building a case against 32-year-old William Ruben Ebron, who was watching Lonzie when he disappeared.
Ebron, who is Lonzie’s primary caregiver, initially told detectives that he left Lonzie inside his car to get something inside the house but came out to find someone taking off with his car- with Lonzie still inside.
Deputies said the details of that story don’t add up.
Ebron was arrested last week on unrelated child neglect charges.
However, the 32-year-old is still considered the prime suspect in this case.
“At any given time when that new piece of information comes in, these efforts can be ramped back up, so at the end of the day today, you may not see the large buses and 70 officers out there, there’s still a very large contingency of folks that are working on this case, to bring this case to a successful resolution,” Chief Hackney concluded.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office will go over all their search efforts on Monday and decide what their next step is to find Lonzie Barton.
The reward for tips has been increased to $12,500.