Boy Found After 6-Hour Police Search

Call it the case of the country kid getting lost in the big city.

That’s how Jennifer Robertson of the Central Valley town of Spring- ville described the nearly six-hour search Sunday for her 7-year-old son on the west end of Ventura.

Robertson and her three boys, Aaron, 11; Eric; and 1-year-old Ian, were visiting her sister. They spent Saturday at the California Strawberry Festival in Oxnard, and Morse and the two oldest boys awoke Sunday to go for a bike ride.

Eric was ready at 9:20 a.m., and his mother told him not to leave the driveway.

But when Morse, her mother, Meg Marrell of Porterville, and Aaron were ready to join Eric, the 7-year-old was nowhere to be found.

At 9:50 a.m., they notified authorities that he was missing.

Within about 90 minutes, a helicopter from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department was aiding two dozen Ventura police officers in a block-by-block search.

Eric was found unharmed at 4 p.m. about two miles southeast of his aunt’s house at the intersection of San Nicholas Street and Arcade Drive. The boy had gotten lost while riding his bike.