JEFFREY BROWN - 16 yo /Disabled - Hancock County MS

Rescuers were planning to search through
the night Wednesday for a developmentally disabled boy who left school
and disappeared into a heavily wooded area earlier in the day.By
sunset, police, firefighters and volunteers had spent hours looking for
16-year-old Jeffery Brown, a student at Hancock High School. He
reportedly left the campus north of Interstate 10 in the early
afternoon and had been spotted in the woods off a muddy trail between
Stennis Airport Road and the interstate.

Searchers fanned out on foot, riding four-wheelers, and on horseback. A helicopter from the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department also participated in the search.Later in the afternoon, searchers found a book bag and a shirt the boy had left behind in the woods.His father, David Brown, said his son had disappeared on many other occasions, usually in Jackson County.The family recently moved to Hancock County.As darkness fell Wednesday, the rescuers gathered at a command post at the high school. Major
Matt Karl, head of the Hancock County sheriff’s SWAT team, split
searchers up into teams and organized an all-night vigil along
Mississippi 603 near the area the boy was thought to be.“He’s playing games with us,” Karl said. “He might stay in there all night and come out in the morning.”However, he feared for the boy’s safety in the woods, which have swarms of mosquitoes and are heavily infested with ticks. “We’ve had two officers already who went down with tick bites” during the search, Karl said.

A Hancock County teenager missing since Wednesday afternoon has been found safe and sound. Jeffrey Brown was discovered in the football field restroom about 6:15 Thursday morning. School officials say he was not hurt. Brown
is autistic, and, according to his parents, sometimes wanders off. But
there was real concern the teenager could be been lost in the dense
woods surrounding the school.