Nearly a month after autistic teen Sebastian Rogers went missing, the United Cajun Navy has taken over the desperate search to find the boy.
Sebastian, 15, is believed to have left his family home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, in the early hours of February 26.
Since he vanished, volunteers, police and the boy’s father, Seth, have looked for Sebastian day in and day out.
The nonprofit organization, known for establishing rescue teams to help search for people during natural disasters, has also taken on general missing persons cases.
‘Sebastian’s father reached out to us and asked for help, and so, we’re going to try to help up there as much as we can,’ David Flagg, the Director of Operations for the organization told WKRN.
The group recently worked on the the search for missing 22-year-old Riley Strain who disappeared in Nashville two weeks ago. His body was discovered in the Cumberland River on Friday.
A month after autistic teen Sebastian Rogers went missing, the United Cajun Navy has taken over the search
‘Sebastian’s father reached out to us and asked for help, and so, we’re going to try to help up there as much as we can,’ David Flagg, the Director of Operations for the organization
His father, Seth, has relentlessly searched for his son and said that he has taken off of work and gotten very little sleep as he does so
Volunteers involved in the search for Riley have since shifted their efforts to try and locate Sebastian.
Though they did not elaborate on where exactly they were searching, the organization did say that drones and K9’s are assisting.
‘The United Cajun Navy is working with local law officials. Please stand by and let the process work,’ the organization said in a Facebook post about locating Sebastian.
On Sunday, the boy’s father and a group of volunteers searched for Sebastian near the Rockland Recreation Area in Hendersonville.
His father has relentlessly searched for his son and said that he has taken off of work and gotten very little sleep as he does so.
‘That one child, he was autistic, and in 13 days he walked 200 miles,’ Seth said in an interview.
‘We’re twice that now. So he could be 400 miles from here,’ the emotional dad said as he and volunteers searched for Sebastian at Natchez Trace State Park.
Police and volunteers have been searching nearby woods blasting Eye of the Tiger, which is Sebastian’s favorite song.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said more than 2,000 miles have been searched on foot, and there have been aerial searches with helicopter, drones and a fixed wing plane.
His family said Sebastian is drawn to water and pools in the neighborhood have been searched and dive teams have been brought in to search bodies of water.
Police and volunteers have been searching nearby woods blasting Eye of the Tiger , which is Sebastian’s favorite song
His mother, Katie Proudfoot, has claimed that she heard a ‘noise’ coming from his bedroom the night he vanished. (pictured: her and Sebastian’s step father Chris Proudfoot)
Sebastian’s mother and step father, Katie and Chris Proudfoot, recently sat down for an interview with YouTube channel Chronicles of Olivia to share more details about Sebastian’s disappearance.
Katie said the day before he vanished was an average day for their family, Sebastian took the garbage down to the end of their driveway as his chore and then around 9 pm, she told him to go to bed.
His mother has claimed that she heard a ‘noise’ coming from his bedroom the night he vanished.
‘He was doing something in his room because about an hour later, I heard some noise and I was like, “I don’t care what you’re doing in there but go to sleep,”‘ Katie said.
‘Six o’clock, I went to wake him up for school Monday morning, and that’s when he wasn’t there.’
Sebastian’s mother said, ‘I didn’t see him in his room. I looked all over. I ran through the whole house. I looked out all the doors and windows, and I was like hollering his name.’
‘I jumped in my car, and I drove around the neighborhood, and I drove over by the school, and … like, at this point I was like hysterical, and I was crying, I was screaming.’
Officials analyzed home security video from the Hendersonville neighborhood around 3:10 am on the day the teen went missing.
The camera, which was placed at the back of the house, captured two light sources far away and another light source named ‘Subject One’ closer to the house.
Another light source named ‘Subject Two’ can be seen briefly appearing in the footage and and moving toward Subject One before being obscured by bushes.
A few seconds later, Subject One can be seen moving out of frame. Subject Two then reappears in the video and follows Subject One.
Officials analyzed home security video from the Hendersonville neighborhood around 3:10 am on the day the teen went missing. The camera captured two light sources far away and another light source named ‘Subject One’ closer to the house
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said more then 2,000 miles have been searched on foot and there have been aerial searches with helicopter, drones, and a fixed wing plane
However, Sebastian’s stepfather insisted the video is not what it seems. ‘Nothing that is being assumed right now is actually true about that video,’ he told Chronicles of Olivia.
‘Everybody is trying to assume is a flashlight, I hate to say this it’s not as much as we would love it to be one it’s not.’
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations said, ‘The video has been collected, and from the beginning of the investigation, has been analyzed, and enhanced where possible, by tech experts with the TBI, FBI, and Secret Service. To date, nothing gathered from these video systems has been determined to be significant.’
‘We do caution that some surveillance video being shared in the public may have been misinterpreted or misidentified, or not shown in its entirety. It has been determined that it does not hold any evidentiary significance to the investigation.’
Seth said that his son would not get into a stranger’s vehicle.
‘It’s up in the air for me. He would not get into a vehicle unless he knew them,’ he told NC5.
The troubled father said he was at his wits’ end trying to work out what happened to his son with no leads that make sense.
He said Sebastian was not one to wander off, and due to an experience as a young boy, would never go far without shoes on.