By David Grant Long

A missing three-year-old boy who disappeared while hiking in northeastern Colorado Oct. 2 may have been at Mesa Verde National Park the following day, a seasonal park ranger told a Denver TV station recently.

“It’s like a lead on a case,” Chief Ranger Charlie Peterson said yesterday while discussing the possible sighting by Interpretative Ranger Craig Weston during a tour of Balcony House Oct. 3. “It worried the interpretive (ranger) enough that he said, ‘Hey, I want a report written.’”

In a story aired Sunday evening, Weston told KCNC-TV that he saw a boy that “looked very much like” Jaryd Atadero, who had been reported missing on the other side of the state the previous day.

Atadero became the subject of a massive, week-long search effort after he was reported missing by members of a Christian singles group that had taken him along on a hike north of Fort Collins on a remote trail in Poudre Canyon. He was last seen hurrying ahead from one part of the group to join other members further along the trail.

Even though the area was intensely combed by 70 searchers, no definitive evidence of the Atadero’s whereabouts was discovered, leading to speculation he may have been carried off by a mountain lion or fallen into some inaccessible rocky crevice. Larimer County authorities have repeatedly discounted any theory involving a possible abduction.

Peterson said that after seeing a picture of Atadero on the news later that evening, Weston was struck by the strong resemblance between the missing toddler and the boy on his tour.

The pair stuck out in his mind because of their unusual behavior during the tour, according to Weston’s report:

“I noticed the young boy was very friendly, as was the adult male, but thought it was odd that the boy wanted to hold my hand,” he wrote. “I never gave this much thought until I saw the news out of Denver and the description of the missing three-year-old child.”

‘The description fits that of (Atabero),” he added. “Looking back, I believe the man called the boy Jerald.” The two were traveling in a 1998 or 1999 silver Geo Tracker with Colorado license plates, Weston recounted, and he last saw the SUV the following morning around 9:30 a.m., leading him to conclude they had spent the night in the park. He described the man as 5’6” tall, 160 pounds, with short black hair and prescription glasses and the boy as having sandy-blonde hair, but couldn’t recall his clothing.

Peterson said after Weston notified him of his suspicions, rangers looked all over the park for the vehicle, but found nothing. Weston’s report was faxed to Larimer County authorities as soon as it was written and the FBI was contacted as well, he added, but this produced little reaction.

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden told the Associated Press Monday that he doubts the boy Weston spotted was Atabero. “I’ve never heard of anybody abducting someone and them parading him around in a tour group.”

Westover told KCNC that on a scale of one to 10, he would rate his certainty that the boy was Atadero as a “seven.” Peterson said he has full confidence in Westover’s observational abilities, and that the ranger was not the sort of person to seek the limelight otherwise.

“Craig’s a good guy — he’s not crazy,” he said. “I trust him.”