Missing toddler found safe

Volunteers find Granville boy -- with faithful dog -- about a mile from home

OXFORD -- As night fell and hope dwindled, Connor Cummings was found Saturday night sitting on a stump with his golden lab, Sandy, by his side.

The toddler, not yet 2, had been missing since 6:30 p.m. Friday, when he wandered away from his home in Goshen, a rural community tucked in the northwestern corner of Granville County.

After a search spanning more than 24 hours and including more than 300 people, it was two men on horseback who got the first clue to the boy's whereabouts.

Steve Brewer and Craig Vaugan were riding down the cleared right-of-way for high-voltage power lines, hollering the names of Connor and Sandy. More than a mile from the Cummings' home and near the edge of the expansive area designated for them to search, they heard a single bark answering from the woods.

After summoning additional help, Connor and Sandy were soon found.

"He had a lot of ticks on him, he'd lost his flip-flops and his diaper was full, but other than that he was fine," said Brewer, a friend of the family who had been looking for Connor since early Saturday morning. "It was a happy ending."

As the search for Connor wore on Saturday afternoon with no sign of the boy, some of those in the search party began whispering among themselves the dreaded possibility that he had been abducted or washed away in the torrential rains the night before.

As the sun grew low and orange above the trees, a line of people several hundred feet wide forced its way through dense briars and brush that surrounded the Cummings' house off Jack Adcock Road.

He wandered off as his mother, Teresa Cummings, fed the family's many dogs at the expansive kennel behind their white, two-story house with a wide front porch and an inflatable baby pool in the backyard.

Connor was wearing nothing but a jumper and a pair of sandals. Volunteer firefighters and law enforcement officers searched through the night.

Before dawn Saturday, calls went out as far as the mountains for teams of trained search dogs and their handlers. People pulled in with trailers full of horses to join the effort, as well as people with all-terrain vehicles. Helicopters and small airplanes circled overhead.

Without any evidence Connor had been abducted, officials held off on issuing a statewide Amber Alert, believing he would be found close to the home. But the longer the search continued without success, the more those looking for him began to fear the worst.

"Searches will continue through the night," Oxford police detective Jason Tingen said.

About 4 p.m., Teresa Cummings walked back down the gravel path to the kennels where her son disappeared.

"Dogs have to be fed," she said, the strain etched on her face. "It's been almost 24 hours."

As the daylight grew short, the prospect that the boy might spend a second night alone in the wilderness spurred those looking for him to retread the same ground thoroughly searched hours before.

Thunder rumbled in the distance before a short downpour briefly knocked back the heat and drenched the clothes of those already sticky with sweat. Connor's name echoed through the rugged woods as the searchers rolled over logs and peered into the shallow pools of a nearby creek looking for any sign of him.

When he was found, radios cracked with the news, and word spread to those still in the woods. It had grown dark, and the lightening bugs were out by the time an emergency management services truck carrying the boy pulled into the family's driveway, its lights flashing.

Moments later Connor was in his mother's arms, swaddled in a towel and holding a teddy bear. She carried him to the kitchen, where they were surrounded by family and friends.

The blond-haired tot was placed on the counter, sporting a fresh pair of training pants as he swigged from a sippy cup and devoured an orange freezer pop.

"Except for the scratches and bruises and some dehydration, he's none the worse for wear," the mother said as her husband, Jeff Cummings, stood nearby.

"I want to thank everybody, the hundreds, who helped today," she said. "God answers prayers. You pray and you pray and he answered."

Sandy, meanwhile, was out back being fed treats.