Divers from the state Underwater Recovery Team have changed their approach to searching for the body of 14-year-old Devon Cotton, who disappeared Wednesday (May 31) in the Big River near Rockford Beach in House Springs, said Cpl. Juston Wheetley of the Missouri State Hwy. Patrol.
“Officers searched until it was too dark to see last night (June 1) and then called the search off (for the night),” he said.
Wheetley said today (June 2) the search has shifted from underwater at the site where Cotton was last seen to the surface of the water in different areas along the river.
“We thought with all the accounts of witnesses that we had an idea where to search,” he said.
Officers used sonar to search potential sites near Rockford Beach, but divers came up empty.
Wheetley said the search was difficult because the river was so dark and the current so swift near where the boy was last seen.
“We are going to exhaust all efforts in the search,” he said.
Cotton and his friends, Austin Dixon, 17, of Crystal City and Logan White of Crystal City, were swimming just east of the dam Wednesday afternoon, crossing the river to the rock bluff, when Cotton began to struggle and all three were swept into the current, Wheetley said.
Dixon said he reached for Cotton when he started heading over the dam.
“I grabbed onto him as long as I could,” Dixon said. “The current took a dip and ran us into a rock that split us apart.”
Dixon was pulled under the current and when he came up, he saw Cotton next to the wall, he said.
“Then I was pulled back under, and when I came up, he was gone,” Dixon said.
At 3:53 p.m., the High Ridge Fire Protection District got a call for a possible drowning, and firefighters arrived on the scene at 3:57 p.m., said Ron Tisius, High Ridge Fire public information officer.
Firefighters from the Cedar Hill and Eureka fire protection districts joined High Ridge Fire crews, and they spent Wednesday afternoon and evening combing the Big River for Cotton. The state Underwater Recovery team, part of the Marine Division of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, which has taken over the search, joined the firefighters Wednesday evening, and the crews searched until it was too dark to see, Tisius said.
The search continued on Thursday and resumed today.
Cotton’s cousin, Michael Rucker, 19, of Pacific, who arrived at Rockford Beach while the search was underway, said Cotton was “fun to be around.”
“He was the life of the party, always cracking jokes. He was the go-to guy when you were down. He was always cheering people up,” Rucker said.
Cotton was a student at Pacific High School.