Kokomo native helps locate, save abducted boy

Jun. 21—With its whitewater rapids, wildlife refuges and a population as scarce as its cell phone service, rural Idaho is an outdoor enthusiast's dream.

But for one 11-year-old boy in May 2022, the backcountry of the nation's 14th largest state had turned into a nightmare.

And if it had not been for the persistence and curiosity of one Idaho State Police (ISP) trooper — a Kokomo native — a mother in Georgia would have likely lost her son forever.

'THE CAR HADN'T MOVED'

On May 4, 2022, ISP Trooper David Wesche first noticed the vehicle off to the side of the road as he was driving to the ISP Field Office in Lewiston, Idaho.

Though it did have Florida plates, the vehicle didn't really look out of the ordinary at the time though, Wesche told the Tribune via a telephone interview earlier this month.

In the remote part of Idaho where Wesche lives and works, a county the size of Vermont, it's actually common to see fishermen and hunters ditch their vehicles alongside the road for a few hours of outdoor enjoyment.

And when Wesche drove back through the area a few hours later, the vehicle still hadn't moved.

But a couple days later, the vehicle was once again parked in the same location when Wesche passed through for a third time, prompting the trooper to stop and assess the situation.

A few buckets and some other gear, nothing too suspicious, Wesche thought at the time as he looked into the car's windows.

Over the next few days, Wesche passed the vehicle a couple more times on his way to and from Boise, Idaho.

And when he saw the vehicle again May 10, Wesche decided to officially stop and run the plates.

"That's when it came back to a rental," he said. "It looked like the car hadn't moved or that anyone had been in the vehicle, so I had our dispatch check with Enterprise. They confirmed that the car was supposed to be back in LaGrange, Georgia, the next morning."

But how could a vehicle sitting in rural Idaho make it back to a location over 2,000 miles away in a matter of hours, Wesche thought, and who did this rental belong to anyway?

That answer came after a quick call to Enterprise.

"They gave me the name of Addam Daugherty," Wesche said. "So I asked my sister (who also works in law enforcement) to check her database to make sure this guy had a hunting license because I still thought that's what it was. Of course, he didn't. But then when we were Googling his name, my sister came across this article out of Georgia, and the name Gabriel Daugherty popped up."

Just days earlier, 11-year-old Gabriel was abducted by Addam, his non-custodial parent, and there was also an active Amber Alert in the case.

"And that's what set everything into motion," Wesche noted. "We knew what we had to do at that point."

'A RACE AGAINST TIME'

Usually in the case of missing or abducted children, it's not necessarily the troopers on the ground that begin the investigations, Wesche said. That often winds up in a detective's hands.

But due to the remoteness of the area, Wesche had to initially lead the charge.

"We get a case like this, we don't just go hiking into the woods to see if they're there," he said. "So I notified our dispatch. I notified our patrol lieutenant. I notified our chain of command. And then we reached out to the Idaho County Sheriff's Department. ... I spent a lot of time putting everything together. I contacted LaGrange, Georgia. I contacted the sheriff down there. We kind of got a debrief on this guy. Is he known to have weapons? All that type of stuff. It was a race against time."

The next day, May 12, several local and state agencies met together in the turnout near where the vehicle was still parked and tried to fly a drone into the wilderness to see if the Daughertys were camped nearby.

While that was happening, Wesche and an ISP sergeant were driving back and forth between cell phone coverage areas and writing out warrants so they could seize the vehicle.

"Then ultimately, two sheriff's deputies, an Idaho conservation officer and a forest service officer began hiking in," Wesche said. "They located the camp and were able to negotiate with Addam and agree to have Gabriel leave the camp. He (Addam) ultimately surrendered, and they hiked back out."

And it turns out that the camp was only about 30 minutes from the trailhead, Wesche pointed out.

"It's super remote," he noted. "I ended up going in after the fact to help the forest service clean up the camp and do an inventory of everything that he had. ... It's also super steep. That trail follows a creek that they were on, so the trail itself wasn't really that difficult of a trail, but the camp was up the mountainside off the trail.

"So if it wasn't for that sheriff's deputy noticing what looked like a game trail, you would have never seen their camp from the trail unless you got off and just started hiking through the brush," Wesche added.

And while it's unclear how long the father and son had been camped along the side of that mountain, Wesche did stress that it's unlikely the pair would have made it too many more nights.

"Not that I didn't believe the ER (emergency room) doc when hearing that Gabriel maybe had a day or two left before he may have died, but seeing the camp, it really put into perspective," he said. "Addam had a lot of gear, but just because you have the gear doesn't mean it's going to do anything for you. If you don't know how to use it, it's not going to serve you in any capacity."

For much of their stay along the mountain, Wesche said the Daughertys couldn't really make a fire due to the consistent rains, and the pair were ultimately surviving on items like snails and other grub.

"It was just deplorable," Wesche said. "It was really poor conditions, nothing that any adult should be in, but especially not a kid. It was evident that he didn't know what he was doing."

'I'M NOT A HERO'

These days, Addam Daugherty is now back in Georgia, where he is facing charges related to kidnapping.

Gabriel is now safely back with his mother and siblings and just enjoying being a kid again.

And Wesche is still on patrol, covering hundreds of miles a day in one of the nation's largest counties.

Last month, Wesche and Gabriel had a chance to meet once again when Wesche received the Heroes' Award from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children during a special ceremony in Washington, D.C.

For Wesche, it was a very special reunion.

"The evening of the awards ceremony, we came down to the hotel lobby, and there was Gabriel," Wesche said. "I hadn't met his mom before, but she was there, and I believe his sisters were there too. But his mother came up and gave me a really long hug, and that was pretty emotional. And then at the awards, Gabriel, he didn't know how to tie a tie. And so I helped him tie his tie for him. That was a really special moment.

"And I kind of thought about it all," Wesche added. "What does a mom go through, any parent go through when their kid is missing, and they have no idea what happened or where they are? My wife and I were talking to Gabriel's mom after the awards ceremony, and it really brought that home. She was saying she didn't even know, when Gabriel was in Idaho, she didn't even know where Idaho was. She had to look it up on a map. That's not to criticize her in any way. That was just her mindset. Her world was her son and where they lived."

And Gabriel's mother told Wesche something else that he said stopped him in his tracks that day.

"She told me that Addam was banking on the fact that Gabriel was a little Black boy and that law enforcement wasn't going to care about it," Wesche said. "To hear his mom say that, it just really motivated me even more to make sure something like this doesn't happen again if I can help it."

Because you never really know when you will ultimately have the power to help save somebody's life, Wesche noted.

"I'm not a hero," he said, "I was just doing my job. But if I hadn't dealt with that vehicle, it probably wouldn't have turned out the way it would have. If I would have just kept driving by and driving by and eventually been like, 'Well, the vehicle's been there for a while, we might as well get it towed,' there would probably still be two people up there. People might have eventually stumbled upon them, but we know what they would have found.

"So to think of it from that regard," Wesche added, "it's a pretty rewarding feeling to know you've given someone that opportunity to live out their life, that you had a part in helping to make a family whole again."