Expert Tracks Missing Child
Asbury Park Press (March 28, 2003)
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Waretown: A 13-year-old boy who left his home was safe Thursday after tracker Tom Brown Jr. found him sleeping in the woods opposite the Frederic A. Priff Elementary School on Wells Mills Road.
The seventh-grader at the Southern Regional Middle School in Stafford had left home early Wednesday after a discussion the night before with his parents regarding his report card, according to authorities.
Brown, who heads a tracking, nature awareness and survival school here, was called after a fruitless six-hour search by township police officers, the Ocean County Sheriff's Department and the State Police.
Brown traced the boy's tracks from the family's back yard, onto the street, onto a path through the woods, over the route of the old Tuckerton Railroad and along the shoulder of Wells Mills road.
"Have you watched him (Brown) do this?" Ocean township Police LT. Scott Sprague asked. "You watch him and say to yourself, 'This guy is trying to pull the wool over my eyes. There's no tracks on the pavement to see. Who does he think he's kidding?' Yet, he was able to do in two hours what nine cops, a bloodhound and a guy in a helicopter could not do in twice that time.