02/22/2001 - news

Hunt for missing Benton boy scaled back
By LYNN STEVENS / H-P Staff Writer

BENTON TOWNSHIP -- Police are scaling back their search for a missing 12-year-old Benton Heights boy after failing to find anything Wednesday.
Steven Earl Kraft II reportedly went outdoors to play with his dogs about 6:30 p.m. Feb. 15. The Hull Elementary School student has not been seen since.
"The searchers did not locate Steve or any sign of him," Benton Township Detective Lt. Delmar Lange reported late Wednesday.
"At this time, the area searched by the police department will be suspended. Any additional searches initiated by the police department will be conducted by law enforcement officers only, and will be done at very specific, confined areas. Special units or equipment will be used as needed at any particular search."
A published report today quoted the boy's father, Steven Kraft, as angrily saying that police gave him a polygraph test. A spokeswoman from the Benton Township Police Department would neither confirm nor deny the report, and the father was unavailable to be interviewed this morning.
Lange said the investigative team -- 12 officers from the Benton Township Police Department and the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force -- has been expanded. The team is assigned to look into possible criminal aspects of the boy's disappearance.
Dozens of neighbors and volunteers from as far as Osceola, Ind., have searched an expanded area around the boy's home all day and every day since Sunday. Steven's half-brother, Ian Bopp, 21, drove from his home in Milwaukee to search.
They have combed fields, creek bottom lands, woods, barns, factories, abandoned buildings and a storm sewer. Police have used a bloodhound, a helicopter equipped with an infrared sensor, horse patrols and all-terrain vehicles in the search. Police-supervised search parties covered about 10 square miles of the township.
between Monday and Wednesday. Independent civilian searchers covered additional areas.