(June 18) -- The search for missing 7-year-old Kyron Horman is now focused on the boy's stepmother, Terri Moulton Horman, who was the last person to see Kyron before he vanished.
Two weeks after the little boy disappeared from his Oregon elementary school, Willamette Week reports that investigators have determined that Moulton Horman was not where she said she was on the day her stepson vanished.
Greg Wahl-Stephens, AP
The investigation into missing Portland, Ore., boy Kyron Horman is now focused on his stepmother Terri Moulton Horman, seen here with Kyron's father Kaine.
Police say cell phone records show that on June 4, the day Kyron was last seen, Moulton Horman was on Sauvie Island, five miles from Kyron's school. Divers and rescue teams have been combing that island for any signs of the second-grader since June 10.
"This will not become a cold case for us," Multnomah County Sheriff's Office Capt. Jason Gates said this week.
Since the early days of the case, many found the Horman family's relative silence about their son's disappearance odd. In most missing child cases, parents try to use media attention to raise awareness about their children, but the Hormans have made only two public appearances.
Still, some experts say the family may have a good reason for remaining so quiet.
"The police might think that this is an abduction and, because of that, don't want to feed information to the suspect," Harold Copus, a former FBI agent, told AOL News Thursday. "They may also want the family to remain silent so they don't inadvertently say something they shouldn't to reporters."
Rumors about the case were flying anyway, especially when a local news station in Oregon erroneously reported online that Kyron's body had been found. "Kyron Horman's body found," Portland TV station KOIN declared online Thursday afternoon. The station later retracted the headline and apologized.
Willamette Week, citing unnamed law-enforcement officials "from agencies at the city, county and federal level," says Moulton Horman raised suspicions almost immediately for having claimed to have gone to the gym after reporting Kyron missing.
"Hitting the gym," she wrote on her Facebook wall that morning.
But Lt. Mary Lindstrand, spokeswoman for the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, said the rumors were unhelpful. "They're not thinking about how the information that they're spreading can affect others," she told Willamette Week.
Last week, Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Staton called off the search for Kyron and classified his disappearance as a criminal case.