Father vows to never stop looking for missing son
By Hamilton Kahn
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RIO RANCHO, New mexico (KOAT) — It’s been two years since Juan Escobar’s son went missing.
Locked in a long legal battle with his ex-wife, Escobar had just been given custody of his son, Andrew. The 13-year-old boy went for an overnight with his mother, and she made use of the opportunity to take off with him, and he hasn’t known where he is since then.
Not long after, Escobar hired a private investigator, who found some significant facts: she had changed her name from Miriam Felix to Sophie Shelton, and she had gotten married to a retired state police officer.
“The private investigator found out that she moved up to northern Colorado in the Fort Collins area,” Escobar said. “She has family up there, so I drove up there and I wasn’t able to find them up there when I went.”
Since then, the frustration and determination to keep looking for Andrew grew, as did his awareness of the time he was losing at a critical time in his son’s life.
“You know, he had just finished graduating form fifth grade, and he was about to go into middle school, and so then to have him miss out on those middle school years — he’s probably no in any public schools because we’ve checked, and we assume she’s keeping him in an online school or homeschooling. and the most frustrating part is that people know where he is,” Escobar said.
Adding insult to injury, Escobar also learned that his son’s name had been changed to Oliver Shelton, which only strengthened his resolve. He asked the police and U.S. Marshals for help, but without tips, that went nowhere. Now, he’s spreading the word anyway he can.
“What I never even imagined in my life I would be without two years of seeing him,” Escobar said, “having traveled to different cities, looking for him, putting up his picture on poster boards and car washes, anywhere I can, you know, following up on tips of where it might be.”
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