02/18/2001 - news

Police search for Benton Township boy
By LYNN STEVENS / H-P Staff Writer

BENTON TOWNSHIP -- As his mother fixed dinner Thursday, 12-year-old Steven Kraft II went into his Benton Heights backyard to play with his two dogs.
He and the dogs haven't been seen since, and people are worried.
"There's something wrong here," his father, Steven Kraft, said Saturday night. "I've only slept about two hours in the last three days. I can't sleep. I'm losing my mind. I don't know which way to go."
Kraft, of 2103 Holly Drive, said Benton Township police told him Saturday night their bloodhound had lost his son's scent in the ice and blowing snow behind DeGroot's Nursery at the end of his street.
"(Today), we're going to search Benton Heights, all Benton Township door to door," Kraft said.
Kraft said he wished the police had used the dog Thursday night when he reported his son missing. He said he had spent the past three days and nights searching every woods, ditch, gully, barn and pipe in an 8-mile radius.
"I've been in the woods three days from sunup to sundown," Kraft said. "Between 30 and 40 people are trying to help me in Benton Heights.
"I basically grew up in this town, and I know every ditch, gully, factory, barn, and we've searched them all. We've done everything possible to find him.
"I'm crossing my fingers and praying to God."
Kraft said when his son did not come in for dinner, he thought the boy might have walked down the block with the dogs to visit the boy's married sister. He frequently did that. When no one in the family had seen him by 10:30 p.m., Kraft started asking the neighbors and calling police.
"A neighbor lady said she saw him at the end of the field," Kraft said. "A police officer came out. We looked through the fields, we saw his tracks and the dog tracks."
Kraft said they lost the tracks in the woods beyond the end of Holly Drive.
He said there are two ponds beyond the woods and he has searched around them for tracks without success.
He said a teen reported he had seen the boy picking up bottles outside the Red Arrow Tap at 2170 Red Arrow Highway on Thursday evening. The youth said the boy then got into a red 4-wheel drive Toyota.
Kraft doubts it was his son.
"I don't think he would go with strangers," he said. "He's not that kind of kid."
And he said Steven certainly would not hitch a ride two blocks from his own home. Kraft said if the strangers' intent was abduction, he wondered how anyone could get a reluctant boy and two dogs into a car or truck without anyone noticing.
Kraft also worried about an innocent injury leading to disaster. If his son had tripped in the woods in the darkness and broke his leg, Kraft worried Friday night's bitter cold might have led to hypothermia.
The boy was last seen wearing an aqua Charlotte Hornets jacket, and tan-and-white striped shirt, tan parachute pants and black lug boots.
But Kraft said if he had been unable to walk, Steven might have let one of the dogs loose to run home. Kraft said he would have been able to follow the dog back to his son.
But the police bloodhound could not locate even the scent of the dogs.
Kraft said police told him two young girls had also been reported missing within 45-minutes of his report of Steven's disappearance.
He said police would not tell him their names, but he understood they were younger than 12. He did not believe his son knew the girls.
Kraft said all three missing children attended Hull Elementary School, across Territorial from Benton Township Hall and the Benton Township police station.
The police call sheet listed a juvenile runaway reported at 12:16 a.m. from 2390 Crawford and another at 12:18 a.m. from 650 S. Crystal, Lot 37. Steven was reported as a runaway on the log at 1:23 a.m.
Kraft said Steven was definitely not a runaway.
Police were not available for comment Saturday night.