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[Admin]

Colton resided with his aunt and uncle, James "Rex" and Rebecca Clark, at the time of his disappearance; they had obtained legal custody of him after he was taken from his parents. He was last seen at Rex and Becky's Wewoka, Oklahoma home at approximately 1:00 p.m., shortly before a scheduled apartment with his psychiatrist. Colton's aunt and uncle stated they noticed he was missing when it was time to go. His backpack reportedly disappeared also; they theorized he had run away from home.

Rex and Rebecca stated Colton was abused by his parents, who both had substance abuse problems. He and his older brother came to live with their aunt and uncle three years prior to Colton's disappearance, and had their names changed. The boys were both homeschooled.

Although Colton's aunt and uncle stated they believed he may be being concealed by his biological parents, the circumstances surrounding his disappearance are unclear. Colton's case remains unsolved.

SOURCE: http://www.charleyproject.org

[Admin]

Colt Levi Clark Missing in Seminole County, OK

April 25, 2006

(AP) - It has been five days since 9 year old Colt Levi Clark went missing. The search continues in Seminole County.

Colt is described as 4 feet, 4 inches tall and 65 pounds with short brown hair and hazel eyes. He was last seen wearing silver glasses, blue Wrangler-brand jeans, a sky-blue shirt and white and blue tennis shoes.

An Amber Alert has not been issued because there is no information confirming that the boy has been abducted. One of the many flaws of the Amber Alert. Because the boy is considered missing and not abducted, no amber has been issued.

Gene Thaxton of the state Amber Alert committee said an Amber Alert has not been issued because there is no information confirming that the boy has been abducted. Thaxton said he’s currently classified only as missing. This is the third time in less than a month and the second time since last week that a child has been reported missing in Oklahoma.

A 10-year-old Tulsa girl disappeared March 28 and was found dead, and a 10-year-old Purcell girl who was reported missing last Wednesday was found dead last Friday.

[Admin]

Mom Speaks Out on Boy's Disappearance

Seminole Producer
By Karen Anson
Managing Editor
4-28-06

"The psychics say he's in a bale of hay out there in the pasture."Sixty percent of them say he's still alive."

Rebecca Clark, foster mother of the nine-year-old who has been missing from his Seminole County home for more than a week, introduced herself with those
words, and immediately broke into tears.

"We have $10,000 we've been saving to rebuild our house after the fire," she said, tears dripping from red-rimmed, pale blue eyes."My husband said we'd sign
over our property and walk away from everything"If whoever has him will just
bring him back."

Rebecca is small and blonde, dressed in jeans, boots and a straw hat and has been taking her quest to news media statewide. She and her husband, James
Rex Clark, the missing boy's biological uncle, were approached almost three years ago by the Department of Human Services to serve as foster parents for Colt and his 12-year-old brother. She told tales of what the boys had been through with their bio-logical parents.

"They saw and were involved in things that even adults shouldn't know about," Rebecca said, mentioning the drug and pornography investigations of their parents.

Their mother was recently released from jail and their father is in a drug rehabilitation unit."They changed their names when they came to live with us,"
Rebecca said.

"Colt became Colt Levi River Clark he's dramatic; I am sure he'll become an author someday."

He chose the name, Rebecca said, because Levi means "forever faithful" and River means "everything washed clean."

"And Colt is a young horse," Rebecca added.

Colt's brother, took the name Homer Justice Levi. Homer meaning "good measure.
"He wanted a good measure of justice," Rebecca said.

Rebecca and her husband were emergency room nurses for awhile, then she worked for VisionQuest, an in-residence rehabilitative program for young men
who have been involved in the judicial system.

The program had a headquarters in Wewoka for awhile, but is best known for taking the youth n cross-country wagon train rides.

"Because of that, and because my husband was a charge nurse at the prison, we thought we could accomplish anything with these children," Rebecca said.

James was injured in a tractor accident and homebound, so now she stays home with him and the boys, she added.

Most of their time together was much like any other parent and child relationship.

"He's a sweetheart," Rebecca said of Colton.

"He draws pictures of flowers and writes 'I love you Mama and Daddy' on them."

He missed his biological mother, but Rebecca encouraged him, saying maybe they could see her after she finished her "programs."

"We prayed for her," Rebecca said.

But it had been a hard year for the children.Last summer, the family came
upon a car wreck in which a child died.

"Because we're both ER nurses, we stopped to help," Rebecca said.

"There was blood all over, but we kept the boys in the car so
they couldn't see."

Later, they saw the dead girl's picture on television and found it was someone they'd known before.

"They just fell apart," Rebecca said.

At Christmastime, their foster father had surgery and they feared there would be no gifts.

"But we'd already gotten their gifts," Rebecca said.

Two days after Christmas their house burned, including their Christmas toys and some of their dogs died.

Since then they've lived in a shop building they were thinking
of using for an exotic animal farm.

"We've been building back a little at a time, hoping not to go
into debt," Rebecca said.

The neighbor who Colt had become close to over the past
years died earlier this year. In January, the boys' biological father came to the house, jumped the fence and, Rebecca said, threatened to have the dogs
bite Colt.

"He was screaming and I ran out with the gun," she said."Since then, they hadn't felt safe.

"My husband has been sleeping on the couch and I on the bed and we've padlocked everything.

"The Chihuahuas make so much noise we'd know if anybody came up."

Colt had been having night-mares about the fire and the past.

Rebecca paints Colt as a child who loves music and can play any instrument by ear and sing like an angel.Colt was described as a "bouncing ball," always being
told to get down off things.

"People thought he was retarded, but he just had different interests," Rebecca said.

The stories she tells have also a bit of the darker side, probably what would be expected with the history Colt had.

"When he first came to us, he hurt animals," Rebecca said.

"They had a dog that bit them and we had to get rid of him," Rebecca said.

"We let them get every puppy they wanted. People gave them things.

"Colt had a special pet, a real Russian red wolf pup, who slept with him and was devoted," Re-ecca said.

"He was a ornery, but he was a good boy. He wasn't a troubled child, but he had had a hard life," Rebecca said

They were being homeschooled because Colt hadn't fit in at Seminole Public Schools, she said.
"We told them they were going to Bowlegs after the first of the year and they have the paddle," Rebecca laughed.

But after the fire and the traumatic visit from their father, the Clarks hadn't started the kids back in school.

"They are wonderful kids," Rebecca said.

"Colt wants to be a bull rider and a veterinarian and Homer wants to be a lawyer for children."

Colt had stolen a few dollars from Rebecca before.

"I thought he was probably going to buy dip with it," Rebecca said.

"They (his parents) let him dip and spit."

The day Colt disappeared, he had just finished being grounded for sneaking into a neighbor's house and taking beer.

"He wasn't mad any more," Rebecca said.

"But he'd watched 'Cops' and saw a little boy being handcuffed.

"He told me they arrested that little boy because he stole stuff.

"It was so silly I can't believe I let him watch that."

Colt didn't want to go to counseling or to visit with the DHS worker, afraid, Rebecca said, that he would be taken away from his second family.

Since his disappearance, Homer has told about Colt disappearing whenever Rebecca went to town and reappearing before she came home.

"He was ornery, but he was never afraid to come home," Rebecca said.

The day he disappeared, April 20, they were getting ready to go to a counseling session in Norman.

After their return, a DHS worker was supposed to come over.

Rebecca told the boys to dress in their new summer clothes; Colt
complained, wanting to wear his boots. While she got ready, her hus-
band planned to lie down. When she looked for Colt, he was gone.

"The window was up in his bedroom," Rebecca said.
Asked if she thought he'd gone out there, she said she thought at the time that he was out in the car, ready to go.When he wasn't, she searched and called for him.

The DHS worker came and they agreed to call the sheriff; a deputy came immediately.

They brought dogs and ordered the family to put up their own dogs.

"It was then that we found that Colt's Russian wolf pup was
gone," Rebecca said.

The searching continued all night. At 4 a.m. the pup returned and scratched on the door, but the boy wasn't with him.

Now the Clarks are being contacted by psychics, some of whom say the boy is still on the property, and others who say he's with another family member.

The deputies continue to follow leads and search. Rebecca said a friend of Colt's
told the police that he'd met someone who lived on the railroad last winter.

"I never knew it was so awful back there along the tracks," Re-becca said, talking about the weeds, shrubbery, abandoned shacks and some kind of old drain
or sewer plant.

She said they found food in one of the abandoned shacks.

"I remember telling him that when the VisionQuest boys ran away, the ones who stayed on the railroad tracks were the ones who were the hardest to find," Re-
becca said.

She also recalls teaching him to drive a car in case of an emergency.

"I taught him his directions and he was proud that he could tell me the way to Grammy's house or the VA hospital," she said.

She recalled the time he ran away from the shelter he was taken to as a five-year-old.

Rebecca returned again to her hope that, if someone has the child, they'll bring him to the police and claim the reward.

"We have $10,000, but our family is trying to help us find more," she said Thursday afternoon.

"It's been so long and it's going to storm again. "I had made him dress in summer clothes. I can't imagine he could be gone so long."

[Admin]

Search Continues For A Missing Seminole County Boy

KOTV
5/10/2006

New developments in a case involving a Seminole County boy who's been missing for nearly three weeks.

9-year-old Colton Clark's adoptive mother tells the News on 6, he is a victim of sexual abuse and child pornography, and she fears Colton could be with the people who used to abuse him.

Investigators have been canvassing the state with flyers since Colton disappeared on April 20th. Becky Clark says she's now hired private investigators, which are posting Colton flyers across the nation. “I'm scared, I'm worried, but I am determined. I'm gathering strength I'm on the proactive searching mode and I will not stop."

The Seminole County Sheriff’s Office says he's still following up leads, but thinks Colton may have run away.

[Admin]

10-Year-Old Colt Clark Still Missing After Nearly Eight Months

By Chuck Hustmyre
December 4, 2006

SEMINOLE, Okla. (Crime Library) -- Colt Clark vanished from his aunt and uncle's home last spring. He hasn't been seen since. Rebecca Clark says when she last saw her 9-year-old nephew he was sitting on the sofa, playing a video game with his 12-year-old brother, Homer.

Clark says she told the boys to get changed for a trip into Norman. Colt had an appointment with a psychiatrist. Later that evening, a case worker from the state Department of Human Services was supposed to stop by to talk to Colt. Rebecca's husband, Rex, the boys' uncle, is disabled and was lying down in his bedroom while Rebecca got ready for their trip. When she walked into the living room, Rebecca says, Homer was there but Colt was gone.

Rebecca Clark waited more than six hours before calling the Sheriff's Office to report the boy missing.

Several area canvasses, including one by the hi-tech search and recovery outfit Texas EquuSearch, turned up nothing.

In October, Homer Clark disappeared, but his aunt didn't report him missing for five days. However, once alerted, sheriff's deputies quickly found the missing boy hiding out at a nearby trailer park.

Colt and Homer have been living with their aunt and uncle for the last three years, since the Department of Human Services took them away from their parents. Seminole County Sheriff Joe Craig says accusations against the parents indicate the boys were victims of sexual abuse.

In the eight months since Colt disappeared, no credible information has turned up as to his whereabouts. "We haven't developed any more leads," Sheriff Craig says. "We're stumped."

Craig says he suspects Rebecca and Rex Clark know more than they're saying. Both have refused to take polygraph examinations. "To this day," the sheriff says, "when you talk to them about Colt they talk about him in the past tense."

At the time he disappeared, Colt Levi Clark was 4 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 65 pounds. He wears glasses and has a scar above his left eyebrow. He had on blue jeans, a sky blue shirt, and blue and white sneakers.

Anyone with information about Colt Levi Clark is asked to call either the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) or the Seminole County Sheriff's Office at (405) 382-9340.

[Admin]

Why this boy hasn't been found

Julie Bisbee
The Oklahoman
8/30/2007

SEMINOLE - Investigators in Seminole County still are trying to determine the fate of Colton Levi Clark, a 9-year-old boy whose adoptive parents say they last saw him April 20, 2006. He had an appointment to meet with a counselor that same day, said Seminole County Sheriff Joe Craig.

"It makes you feel hopeless," Craig said. "You've gone out there and searched all this area and you feel like you've failed. We're talking about a 9-year-old boy. There hasn't been a night that I haven't gone to bed and seen this young man's face. I just keep thinking, 'Why haven't we found this kid?'"

'Someone knows something'

More than a year after Colton disappeared, leads are exhausted.

A few days after the anniversary of Colton's disappearance, a caller reported seeing a boy who looked like Colton in a local Wal-Mart, but that turned out to be another sandy-haired boy with glasses, Craig said.

The investigation remains open, but the people who might know the most about the hours leading up to Colton's disappearance have stopped talking.

Colton's adoptive parents, Rex and Rebecca Clark, initially helped investigators, saying they thought Colton ran away.

"They gave us consent to search the house; we didn't find anything unusual," Craig said. "But what was odd to me is that they talked about Colt in the past tense - right out of the box."

A few days later when the Clarks were asked to take a lie detector test, they refused.

Repeated phone calls from The Oklahoman to the Clarks were unanswered and messages were not returned. The Clarks have offered a $10,000 reward for the safe return of Colton.

"My first thought is that they're trying to hide something," Craig said. "Someone knows something and they aren't telling."

Fragmented family

Colton and his older brother Homer haven't had an easy life. Their biological parents battled drug and alcohol addictions throughout their lives, said Jerry Clark, the boys' grandmother, who lives in Nicoma Park.

The boys lived with relatives, including their father's sister, and attended school in the Choctaw area.

Then, they went to live with their father's brother, Rex Clark, and his wife, Rebecca Clark. While they were there, Colton disappeared.

Today, Jerry Clark, is estranged from her son, Rex Clark, and his wife. They haven't communicated since Colton's disappearance.

But problems between them date back further, to when Rebecca Clark told authorities and the media the boys had been molested by other family members.

"They weren't abused, they were just poor little neglected boys,Jerry Clark said, rebutting those allegations. "There's nothing wrong with those boys. I know they were not abused when they were up here. We all helped with them."

At one point, Homer accused his family members, including his grandfather and older sister, of molesting him, but family members took lie detector tests and no charges were ever filed, said the boys' older sister, Raven Womack, 25, of Newalla.

Family members said they lost contact with the boys after Colton and Homer, who changed his name from Austin, moved in with Rex and Rebecca Clark.

Family members who used to pick up the boys on weekends or take them to school every morning no longer were allowed contact with Colton and Homer, said Jerry Clark.

Shortly after moving in with Rex and Rebecca Clark, the boys were taken out of school in Seminole and homeschooled.

In October, Homer Clark, 13, was picked up by authorities, who accused the youth of having broken into a neighbor's home and of taking a gun and a cell phone.

After that, Homer was taken into Department of Human Services custody. The Clarks since have relinquished their parental rights.

Craig said he's interviewed Homer, who said he didn't remember anything about the day Colton disappeared. Family members have been told that Homer is in a foster home somewhere in the state and is doing well, but wants nothing to do with his family.

Rex and Rebecca Clark had been registered nurses for several years before the boys came to live with them. Rex, Vietnam veteran, voluntarily surrendered his nursing license in 2002. Rebecca's nursing license was suspended the same year. The Oklahoma Board of Nursing investigated complaints that the couple was removing tattoos from juveniles at a Wewoka group home for boys.

Neither was licensed to do that sort of medical procedure and had not obtained signatures from the parents of the three boys investigators say had the procedure, which resulted in third-degree burns and scarring.

Rebecca Clark worked at the facility, Rex did not, according to documents from the Oklahoma Board of Nursing. The Clarks didn't show up for a hearing to discuss the complaints, saying Rex was too ill to attend the hearing and Rebecca had to care for him.

A doctor who was treating Rex Clark at the time said he suffered from a "major depressive disorder with psychoses and PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)." The affidavit also said Rex's mental state had worsened by treatment for Hepatitis C.

Family fears boy is dead

Jerry Clark believes Colton is dead, but she continues to pray that his body is found and the family can properly bury him.

"A little boy just don't disappear in a small place like Seminole, Homer Clark said.

Craig said he's not ready to close the case. A glossy flier featuring Colton's face is still taped to the door near Craig's office in Wewoka.

Craig said he expects to try to speak again with his older brother soon about the details of the last day he saw Colton.

"I've been waiting to interview him until he was in a good environment," Craig said. "He's a sharp young man. I think he knows something."

Craig said he initially interviewed the boy when he lived with the Clarks and then met with him again when he was in DHS custody.

"He is a totally different boy," Craig said.

For Jerry Clark, it's unclear what justice is in the disappearance of one grandson and the loss of another one.

"I really do think Colton's life is over," she said. "The only thing that comforts me, if he is dead, is that he went to heaven because he was so young. He deserves a headstone so people can go by and visit him every once in a while."

[gagbry]

you mean to tell me that @ 9yrs old, you can be reported as a runaway if you've never had a history of it. that's what is wrong w/getting justice now. there is NO reason what so ever that this kid should not have had an amber alert out on him. so what if he just ran away...worse case we plaster pics of him everywhere & he's found wondering the streets w/his little backpack? better that than found dead w/no clues b/c his pic was never put up as a missing child. give me a break!