Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 50

Linda King, whose CB name was "Blue Eyes," stayed on the air in an effort to encourage Larry rorm UduiI A small boy's cry for help 10 years ago may have been a hoax, but out of the search for the youngster known only as Larry, New Mexico developed one of the nation's best search-and-rescue procedures elp! Please help me!" The hysterical cries of the small boy were tirst heard over a citizens nana radio at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug- 7, 1973, ACRA search team moved toward that area. Around 10:30 p.m., T.C. Ashby of the Las Cruces CAP flew a special sortie in a Piper Cherokee along the Manzanos. "Blue Eyes" told Larry the plane would turn on its landing lights and that he should yell into his mike when he saw those lights.

He cried out as the plane flew near Chilili. Still the searchers could not find him. Thursday dawned hot, with the temperature rapidly climbing into the 90s. As the hours went by, horror grew at the thought of the child being trapped in a hot truck with his father's decomposing body. Men, women and teen-age volunteers carrying CB radios poured into the Manzanos from all directions.

The air waves were jammed with voices calling to Larry. His own cries were drowned out by the babble. At one point the boy sobbed, "I can't hear you. Blue Eyes. It' too noisy." Children with their own walkie-talkies, caught up in the excitement, began imitating Larry's voice over the air.

Searchers followed up every lead, no matter how far-fetched. A psychic called from a phone booth in Phoenix to say that Larry could be found 20 miles south of Moriarty. A woman called from Maryland to suggest that Sandia Park be checked; she'd once gone off a road there. A church group phoned from Wichita, to say they were holding a round-the-clock prayer vigil for Larry, and that they'd recrived a "message" that he was beside a lake near Alamogordo. All three areas were searched to no avail.

i Constant calls from as far away as New York tied up important phone lines. Two different families in Florida and Missouri phoned to say they had relatives traveling west with sons named Larry and that they'd lost contact with them. Iter, both groups of travelers were accounted for. Another radio operator thought he heard Larry say his last name was Cortesi. For a while this caused excitement among friends of one could get a coherent story from him or learn his last name.

He did say he could see red rocks and that there was a lake or pond nearby. By mid-morning Wednesday three search groups had begun looking for Larry: the New Mexico State Police, under the supervision of Police Chief Martin Vigil; Albuquerque Citizens Radio Association (ACRA), and New Mexico Civil Air Patrol (CAP). Radio operators from Albuquerque, Moriarty and Cedar Crest reported that the boy's signals seemed to come from somewhere south of a cement plant in Tijeras Canyon. Ground- and air-search teams flocked to that area. Joe McKinney of Albuquerque heard about the hunt over KOB Radio.

He drove to one of the search sites and volunteered his services, along with his four-wheel drive vehicle and CB radio. Fie realized helicopters would be needed to search the Manzanos but, because there was not a central coordinator in charge of search operations, no one seemed to know how to obtain the copters. McKinney and another searcher remembered that the Navajos owned two helicopters. They placed a call to Raymond Nakai, then-chairman of the Navajo Tribal Council, at Window Rock, and asked if the Navajos would join in the search for Larry. Nakai called New Mexico Gov, Bruce King and said the Navajos were willing to help, but he wondered why New Mexico was unable to furnish helicopters.

King contacted the N.M. Army National Guard and obtained two Hueys and a U-21 search aircraft. Guard pilot Capt. Rick Tweed, flying the U-21, soon picked up the boy's voice. "Please talk to me," pleaded Tweed.

"We're going to get you something to eat. We're going to find you; I'm going to find you myself, and I'll get you a Double Mac." What the searchers found, however, as the day wore on, were abandoned trucks, cars, refrigerators, stoves, and shiny trash and water tanks. The boy's signals grew weaker as the radio batteries lost power. Toward evening "Blue Eyes" asked Iirry if he could see the sun. An ACRA unit in the Manzanos heard him say he couldn't; it was raining.

Because there had rain in Fourth of July Canyon at sunset, an by Darlene Ross of Fontana, Calif. She tried to calm the child and get more information. He said his father was dead and he needed help. His radio signal faded away and then returned. At one point Ross heard the child beg, "Come on, David, help me." She asked the boy to keep his mike open so she could locate him.

Just before his signal faded away for good, she heard him say his name was Larry and that he was in New Mexico. Ross, who previously had lived in Albuquerque, immediately contacted the New Mexico authorities and then talked with the Albuquerque Journal which ran the first news story on the child that Wednesday morning. Thus began a massive search which soon gained international attention. While New Mexico search teams geared up, reports on the child poured in from other sources. A truck driver in California said he, too, had heard the boy's distress call.

Other Californians with CBs, from Long Beach to Victorville, reported hearing the child's cries. Although a CB radio usually will not transmit over long distances, it can when atmospheric conditions are right. The phenomenon is known as "ionospheric skip." The radio impulses hit the ionosphere and bounce back to earth far from the point of origin. Eventually radio operators in Mississippi, Montana, Canada and even England reported they had heard A CB operator in Albuquerque who established contact with the child Wednesday was Linda King, known by the code name "Blue Eyes." She stayed on the air day and night, trying to encourage the child. Other monitoring stations in New Mexico made contact, too, and additional information came in: The boy was trapped with the body of his father inside the cab of an overturned pickup.

He had no food or water. He was about 6 years old and did not know how to properly use the radio, which was why he kept switching channels and screaming into the mike. No By MADGE HARRAH August 2. 1933 IMPACT i Albuquerque Journal 5.