Search expanded for Montana boy

KALISPELL – The search for a missing 3-year-old boy was expanded Friday, two days after he was apparently kidnapped from outside his grandparents’ house.

“We’re working with the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,” Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan said. “We’re doing some interviews and canvassing the neighborhood.”

Volunteers expanded the area they were searching Friday, said Flathead Search and Rescue leader Jordan White.

Loic J.M. Rogers was reported missing Wednesday night. His father said he took the boy out and told him to get in the car at 7 p.m. Wednesday and went back into the house to get Loic’s little sister.

“When (the father) went back inside, the boy had not yet gotten into the car. And we don’t think he did,” Meehan said.

The father “said he was inside only for a minute,” Meehan said. When he came back outside, the boy was gone. The father said he searched for about 20 minutes before calling law enforcement.

An Amber Alert was issued Thursday.

“We don’t have a lot of leads, but we feel pretty strongly that there probably is foul play involved,” Meehan said. “That is based solely on the fact that we haven’t found the boy and we should have, under the conditions in the area we were searching and the number of searches and the number of people searching.”

Meehan said officials are looking into sex offenders in the area, and are also interviewing neighbors of the grandparents’ and family members.

When last seen, Loic was wearing a red, white and blue coat, blue jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, tan leather boots and a multicolored beanie hat. Loic is 3 feet tall and has blond hair and blue eyes.