HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — A new search for missing Sumner County teen Sebastian Rogers was held Thursday.
His biological father, Seth Rogers, is making sure he scouts out every possible location where his son could be.
Seth told NewsNation affiliate WKRN that he is not sharing a lot about the search due to worry over continued harassment.
“People think that we are not searching anymore,” Seth said. “Well, they can think what they want. Our searches are private.”
Sebastian, 15, disappeared on Feb. 26, almost five months ago. Since then, the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office – along with several other agencies – searched for a little over a week before officials said they were scaling back to focus their efforts on the “investigative side.”
Other organized searches have since been held with no sight of Sebastian.
However, on Thursday, July 11, Seth resumed his search efforts. He told WKRN he took a brief break in searching to get a herniated disc repaired, but after a successful surgery, Seth said nothing is stopping him from searching for his son.
“Now I don’t really have much stopping me from getting out there and doing what I need to do,” Seth explained.
“There’s a refocus,” Tony Mathis, Seth’s spokesperson, said. “We are trying to zero in on more specific information that we are gathering.”
According to Seth, over 40 searchers, vetted by his private investigator on Thursday morning, eliminated possible land and water locations where Sebastian could be in Middle Tennessee.
He said volunteer searchers privy to his continued search efforts are limited due to people following and searchers being harassed at other events.
“We had people following my searchers around who were just handing out fliers,” Seth described. “It doesn’t bode well for people who are trying to help to be put in hostile situations.”
In Thursday’s search effort, Seth said the goal is not to find Sebastian.
“I think that he is alive, but the search that we are doing today is a recovery effort,” Seth explained. “And I am praying that we don’t find him because he is alive.”
“I think that these searches are targeted with more specific information, and we are just hoping that we can get out and clear areas,” Mathis said. “As Seth said earlier, we are hoping to find nothing, but we do have to clear areas out.”
Seth added some people still don’t know Sebastian is even missing.
“I am going to continue to hand out fliers until everybody knows,” Seth said.
“A lot of people have been kind enough to continue to plaster the community with fliers,” Mathis explained. “But we are getting messages that people are stopping in and asking those to be taken down at businesses. They are actually stopping and taking them off the telephone poles….we just can’t wrap our brains around why you would take a flier down for a 15-year-old child that is still missing.”
Seth and Mathis told WKRN they have one unanswered question for the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office.
“We think it is a valid question,” Mathis explained. “We think it is a fair question, and that question is: Are you any closer today to finding Sebastian Rogers than you were on Feb. 26?”
For Seth, the answer to that question is no.
“My son is not here, so we are nowhere closer,” Seth expressed.