The Kansas Media Has Ignored Colton Ross Barrera

Colton Ross Barrera, seventeen, disappeared from Russell, Kansas, on September 26 of 2008. While I had been in Kansas for about a year, I did not hear about Colton. Neither did quite a few other people. Colton had made plans to go to the skate park in Russell, and was supposed to have been dropped off there by a friend. He had told his family that he would call the same friend for a ride home from the skate park. The last place anyone actually remembers seeing Colton is actually at the local high school. He never called his friend for a ride home.

Why didn't I hear about Colton Barrera, and about the fact that he is missing? I would have been very happy to print up flyers and try to help find him. Aside from some unpublicized vigils, what efforts have been made to find this boy? I would like to know. His profile appears in in every missing persons data base that I have checked, including the Charley Project and NCMEC, just nothing in local newspapers or websites. It looks as if the local police and the Kansas Bureau of Investigations wrote Colton off as a runaway and declined to search! Did they even question the last person to see Colton?

Colton's age progressed picture is on the upper left corner of this post, and here is the Facebook page dedicated to finding him. Below is a missing persons poster of Colton, with contact information.