02/19/2001 - news

Searchers start out again today to find missing 12-year-old Benton Heights boy
By LYNN STEVENS / H-P Staff Writer

BENTON TOWNSHIP -- Steven Earl Kraft has not given up on finding his 12-year-old son, who disappeared Thursday night from their Benton Heights home.
Kraft was working with Benton Township police this morning on yet another volunteer search party. A search Sunday that Kraft said included 100 volunteers found no trace of Steven Earl Kraft II, nor the two family dogs who disappeared with him.
One of the dogs returned later Sunday, Kraft said.
Kraft said state police and FBI agents would share their information this morning with any potential searchers on where previous searchers have looked and what the police agencies have done on the case.
Kraft said Saturday his son had gone outdoors about 6:30 p.m. to play with his dogs, a German shepherd and a German shepherd-Chow mix, while his mother finished cooking dinner. Kraft said he and his wife did not worry when Steven did not come in for dinner, because he frequently walked down the block with the dogs to visit his married sister and play with his nephew. They thought he might have eaten there.
But by 10:30 p.m. Thursday, Kraft said they began searching the neighborhood. He called Benton Township police, who sent an officer to look with him. He said they found dog tracks and imprints from Steven's lug boots.
Kraft said Monday the tracks disappeared near the Harbor Haven Ministries building at 2372 Irving Street, about two blocks from the family home at 2103 Holly Drive.
Kraft sounded exhausted but more hopeful this morning than he had Saturday night. He said he was more hopeful because the German shepherd/Chow dog had come home Sunday uninjured. That cheered him, and he felt she might lead him to Steven.
"She was about frozen," Kraft said, "but she had no injuries. I looked at her paws, and they weren't cut or bleeding, as if she'd traveled a long way. I couldn't find any injuries at all, but she was kind of cowed. If you raised your voice she squatted down, she's not that kind of dog. She's usually running around raising cain.
"Every time we let her out, she keeps going back to that mission back there."
Kraft said a large man from the mission had given him some pointers on how to search for his son Thursday night. He said he didn't know the man.
Steven Kraft II turned 12 in January. He is enrolled at Hull Elementary School in Benton Township. He stands 5-foot-2, has brown hair and green eyes. He was last seen wearing an aqua Charlotte Hornets jacket, a tan and white striped shirt, tan pants and black lug boots.