Police and volunteers have been searching for Kiaya Campbell. She was last seen in the 12900 block of Colorado Boulevard during a heavy rainstorm between 8:30 and 9 p.m. Wednesday. Police said she got separated from a 15-year-old boy who was walking her home from her father’s house near East 136th Avenue and Colorado.
“He started running and (she) didn’t,” Thornton Police spokesman Matt Barnes said. The teen is the son of her father’s girlfriend.
Authorities are concerned the child may have been swept away in a flash flood and are searching street culverts and drainage ditches, Barnes said. Police previously said she was last seen around 7 p.m.
Police spent much of Thursday performing a grid search looking for the girl. “We are trying to exhaust all these places where somebody could be hiding or found,” Barnes said.
The search started in the area where Kiaya was last seen and is widening, he said. Police dogs also are helping with the search.
An Amber alert was issued for Kiaya about 1:30 p.m. in an effort to alert more people that she is missing.
“We just wanted to get the information a little more widespread,” Barnes said. The longer the girl is missing, the more concerning it is, he added.
Police were called on a missing child report at 11:52 p.m. Wednesday to a home on the 12400 block of Forest Drive.
Kiaya is 5-feet, 4-inches tall and weighs about 150 pounds. She has brown hair and blue eyes and was last seen wearing blue pants, an orange Broncos shirt and was carrying a black backpack with gray and white camouflage on it.
