On June 4, 2010, Kyron Horman went to Skyline School in Northwest Portland. He vanished and has not been witnessed since.
Now, 11 years later, his mother, Desiree Young, used Facebook to remind people about her son.
“Things are too quiet, and it sounds like Multnomah County may not even know that they are still searching for Kyron,” she wrote. “This is not acceptable, and I will be taking it to their doorstep. Kyron — I love you. I will never stop fighting for you.”
In the afternoon, Multnomah County DA Mike Schmidt tweeted: “Bringing Kyron Horman home is our number one priority in this case and we will never lose sight of that.”
The Day Kyron Horman Went Missing
When Kyron Horman disappeared from Skyline School, it was considered a lost person case for nine days. On the 10th day, Desiree Young and her husband Tony filed into a church across the street with Kyron’s dad Kaine Horman and stepmother Terri Moulton Horman.
Investigators declared the case had become a criminal case. Asked by KOIN 6 News reporter Lisa Balick if they’d have to find Kyron to make an arrest, Sherrif Dan Staton said simply, “No.”
No one has been caught. There is no sign of Kyron.
Some Court Records
Desiree and Kaine Horman have never quit trying to get answers from Terri — who is now Kaine’s ex-wife.
Terri is the last known person to notice Kyron when she dropped the 7-year-old off at school and took a photo of him with his science project.
Terri Horman, followed by attorneys Peter Bunch and Stephen Houze, right. leaves the Multnomah County Courthouse after a brief hearing on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Ross William Hamilton, Pool)
Investigators have never mentioned a suspect. But Terri’s own lawyer and a judge have called her a suspect in court papers.
Other court records said Terri decided to hire a landscaper to kill Kaine Horman before Kyron disappeared.
“I believe she strategically did something to take out me, Kaine, the teacher, the principal at the school,” Desiree said. “She was angry at a lot of people that day, and she is one move did all of that. So, I’ll give her credit for coming up with something to hurt all of us.”
Terri speaks little
Terri Horman has responded very little through the years.
In a 2016 appearance on Dr. Phil, Terri Horman said, “I did not kill him. I did not kidnap him and I just want him found.” She also said she failed two lie detector tests, accusing a hearing problem of one and a hurried examiner on the other. She walked out on a third test.
“Fact is, I don’t know where he is, I don’t know who has him, I do not know if he’s alive, if he’s being held captive,” Terri told Dr. Phil. Where the case stands
In a 2020 documentary on Investigation Discovery, Desiree said detectives shared incriminating emails written by Terri.
“You see how she puts in writing how she hates Kyron and wishing he would just die,” Desiree stated in the documentary.
As the investigation progressed into its fourth week, it became clear that detectives were taking a closer look at Terri Horman. They also believed another adult had been with her when she drove Kyron to school for the science fair. Police designed a flier with pictures of Terri, her white pickup truck, and her friend Dede Spicher. All residents who lived within a 4-mile range of Skyline Elementary School were sent a copy of the flier along with a questionnaire asking if they remembered seeing the women or the truck in the area between 8:45 am and 1:00 pm on the day Kyron went missing.
Several witnesses reported to investigators that they had seen Kyron walking across the parking lot with Terri on the day he went missing. They thought another grown-up was waiting in Terri’s truck at that time. Terri has always refused this, and Dede told police she was at work the day Kyron went missing. Dede would later pass a polygraph and always maintained that she had nothing to do with the disappearance.
Age progression of Kyron Horman Photo provided by NCMEC
Many people seemed persuaded that Terri had done something to Kyron, but detectives could not find any physical proof to support this theory. Not wanting to be blamed for tunnel vision, investigators continued pursuing other possibilities. They examined all the registered sex offenders in the area. They pulled visitor logs from Skyline Elementary School for the week Kyron went missing and searched through them. They followed up on every possible sighting of the child that was reported. They even got phone logs and followed up with people who had made cell phone calls routed from the tower closest to the elementary school on the morning Kyron disappeared. In the first year of the investigation, the task force questioned more than 3500 people and spent more than 26,000 hours working on the case. Nothing brought them any closer to finding Kyron.
In June 2012, Desiree filed a civil lawsuit against Terri Horman. In addition to asking for financial damages, she requested a judge to order Kyron’s former stepmother to either return him or direct authorities to his remains. Terri filed a motion to delay the lawsuit as it sought knowledge that could end in criminal prosecution. Although a judge initially ruled that there was no reason to delay, Desiree eventually dropped the lawsuit. Terri still states she had nothing to do with Kyron’s disappearance, and she has no idea where he is.
Kaine and Terri’s divorce was finalized in 2013, and Kaine was granted full custody of Kiara. In June 2014, Terri went to court asking to change her name from Terri Lynn Moulton Horman to Claire Stella Sullivan. She insisted that her name had been discredited due to the investigation, and she couldn’t find a job. She wanted to make a new start with a new name, but the judge rejected the request. She eventually found a job as a mental health support specialist but left after just two months because she claimed she was being attacked and stalked. She tried to get a restraining order against the woman she said was chasing her, but a judge found no basis for her claim and denied the request.
There have been various searches for Kyron in the decade since he went missing, but no proof of the little boy has ever been found. While Desiree and Kaine decided to remain hopeful, they have come to terms with the fact that Kyron is most likely deceased. No charges have ever been filed in his case.
Kyron Horman was seven years old when he went missing in 2010. He has brown hair and blue eyes, and his sight is very poor. At the time of his disappearance, he was 3 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 50 pounds. He was last seen wearing a black CSI t-shirt with green lettering and the picture of a handprint on the front, black cargo pants, white athletic socks, and black Skechers sneakers with orange trim. He was also wearing metal-framed eyeglasses.
