Search Begins For Kansas Boy A Decade After Disappearance

Topeka, KS (AHN) - Police said on Monday they have only begun searching for a boy who disappeared a decade ago when he was about 12 years old.

Adam Herrman lived in Pine Ridge Mobile Home Park in Towanda with his adoptive parents Doug and Valerie Herrman when he went missing in 1999. The parents have said he was a problem child who frequently ran away.

Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy is quoted by the Kansas City Star as saying investigators are treating the case as a death since "when you are working it as a death you are digging deeper, longer." He released a photo of Adam as a fourth-grader, in a long-sleeved blue shirt and wearing eyeglasses.

A lawyer for the parents, Warner Eisenbise, told CNN the couple "really rue the fact that they didn't" report the boy missing.

The Wichita Eagle cites an aunt, Kim Winslow, as saying the last time she saw Adam was on Super Bowl Sunday in 1999, locked in the bathroom and chained to a bathtub faucet because he was misbehaving. The parents, who now live in Derby, have not been charged with any wrongdoing and are currently "people of interest" in the case.