TO CLOSE

According to Gastonia, North Carolina police Maddox Ritch was last seen on Saturday afternoon. Before his disappearance, he had been last seen with his father and another adult. The authorities say that Ritch is autistic and nonverbal.
USA TODAY & # 39; HUI

Maddox Ritch, age 6, was last seen at Rankin Lake Park in Gastonia, NB on September 22, 2018.(Photo: Distributed document, via the FBI)

The FBI and more than two dozen other agencies descended into a vast park in North Carolina as the desperate search for an autistic, non-verbal child entered its third day on Monday.

Maddox Ritch, age 6, was with his father and another adult when he escaped and disappeared Saturday at Rankin Lake Park, a 240-acre jewel located 20 miles west of Charlotte.

Gastonia Police Chief Robert Helton said that Maddox's family worked closely with the authorities.

"We are all working around the clock with one goal in mind: to find Maddox and bring him home safely," Helton said Sunday, adding that "every second counts when a child is missing."

More: Lie kept a daughter and his father apart for 51 years

More: 11 children were rescued from a New-World complex of the "third world" type

The FBI's special agent, Jason Kaplan, said the FBI had appealed to a rapid deployment team for child abduction, specially trained to track down missing children. No Amber alert was issued because the case did not meet the criteria, said Kaplan without further explanation.

"We will explore all possibilities, including kidnappings, but we will also search every inch of the earth to make sure it's not just lost," Kaplan said.

Kaplan said that it's not uncommon for children with special needs to get lost or go away.

"Unfortunately, we are dealing with some frequency so that the FBI has special resources," Kaplan said. "We deal with local resources, sometimes we talk to specialists and the family is usually part of this resource because they let us know what the child could respond to."

Helton urged residents in the area to inform the authorities if they had seen anything out of the ordinary.

"No information is too small," Helton said. "Our goal is to find Maddox as quickly as possible and bring him home."

Contributor: WCNC-TV Charlotte

Read or share this story: https://usat.ly/2QZZLVw