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Citrus Deputies Try To Sort Out Puzzle Of Wandering Boy

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TBO.com

Published: March 21, 2009

Citrus County sheriff's deputies are trying to piece together a puzzle involving a pajama-clad 8-year-old boy who was found running along a country road about a mile from his home in the middle of the night this week. They are looking for an unknown man who may have taken him.

The boy's memory is sketchy, deputies say, but he did provide a detailed description of a man and a truck, with whom the boy seemed to have met on his journey.

He described a white man wearing blue jeans, possibly rolled up, and a white T-shirt. He had black hair, a tattoo on his left bicep of an alligator in the water with a fish in its mouth. On his right bicep, deputies said, there was a tattoo of a bear with an open mouth.

He drove an older model, light blue or gray pickup truck with black interior and a center gear shift. In the bed was a Diamond Plate tool box, deputies said. Also in the bed was a muzzled dog, possibly a boxer.

Deputies say the man is a "person of interest."

Deputies say that around 11:30 p.m. Thursday, a couple heading home to their north Crystal River residence saw the boy and recognized him as being from their neighborhood. He was trotting along Dunnellon Road at North Citrus Avenue.

They stopped and called the sheriff's office and stayed with him until deputies arrived.

Detectives have worked around the clock to find out how the child got there, but there are still unanswered questions. The boy was unharmed, clothed in his pajamas and there was no forced entry into his house.

His parents were home at the time and unaware that the boy was missing, deputies said.

Detectives are following leads as they come in, but have verified that all sexual offenders and predators living in the area have accounted for their whereabouts at that time.

"We are leaving all of the possibilities open," Capt. Jim Cernich said in a news release asking the public for help. "However, it would help if we could locate the person matching the description to gather more information."

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call (352) 726-1121.

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