Sebastian Rogers updates: Mother of missing autistic teenager says he may have been abducted

Katie Proudfoot told Crime Stories with Nancy Grace that she couldn’t understand how Sebastian Rogers, who is 15, couldn’t have been found yet otherwise.

“I feel like if he had been close to the house, or had walked off, that we would have found him by now with as many people as have been searching,” Ms Proudfoot told the podcast on Monday.

Ms Proudfoot said she had heard a noise from Sebastian’s room around an hour after he went to bed on 25 February.

“A thud,” she clarified in the interview, saying she had called out to her son, who replied, and she told him to get to sleep.

That was the last time she heard her son, she said. Mr Proudfoot, meanwhile, was away for work on a construction site.

In an update on Friday 22 March, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said its officers were still going over and reviewing information related to Sebastian’s case.

“Much of the work being done to track down information about where Sebastian may have gone is not something you will necessarily see in the public. But we want you to know that every day, work is being done to find Sebastian,” the TBI said in a statement.

The Bureau urged locals to check their property, outbuildings, decks and vehicles for any signs of the 15-year-old.

“He was doing something in his room because about an hour later, I heard some noise, and I was like, ‘I don’t care what you’re doing in there, but go to sleep,”’ Katie Proudfoot, Mr Roger’s mother, recalled the channel.

“[At] six o’clock, I went to wake him up for school Monday morning, and that’s when he wasn’t there.”

Ms Proudfoot scanned the entire house, as she said it’s typical for him to get up and rummage for snacks or will dip behind the walls and playfully scare her.

“I didn’t see him in his room. I looked all over. I ran through the whole house. I looked out all the doors and windows, and I was like hollering his name,” she said.

“I jumped in my car, and I drove around the neighborhood, and I drove over by the school, and … like, at this point, I was like hysterical, and I was crying, I was screaming.”

It was at that point that her husband phoned law enforcement, but “20 days later, we haven’t found him”.

After announcing that it will be assisting in the search for Sebastian, the United Cajun Navy said on Monday that it needed other volunteer groups to “stand down” for 24 hours.

The group says that will allow organisers to come up with a plan and proper permissions of where and how they can search, especially on private land.

They also asked for people to not live stream search efforts, saying this situation is about finding Sebastian and not getting likes and shares.

Sebastian Rogers vanished overnight between 25 and 26 February.

Speaking to News 2 in Tennessee, Sebastian’s father Seth Rogers said he had called in the new volunteers.

“I just want to find my son,” he told the outlet. “All I know is that he has disappeared out of his mama’s house, and it’s my job to find him and bring him home.”

He was filmed last week searching woodland, calling his son’s name:

The United Cajun Navy, which has sent a team to help search for Sebastian, is a nonprofit organisation which usually offers up search-and-rescue teams following natural disasters.

However, they also help in the search for missing persons.

The group boasts some 4,890-plus volunteers across over 19 US states.

UCN gained widespsread recognition following Hurricane Katrina nearly 20 years ago. Its teams gather supplies from across the country and direct them to where they are needed.

That also applies to missing persons searches, with the group having its own search-and-rescue dogs, drones and other resources.

There is a national Amber Alert active for Sebastian Rogers, one of only two currently.

The alert describes him as being white, 5’5” tall, weighing 120lbs., with brown hair and brown eyes.

He was last seen wearing a black sweatshurt, black sweatpants and glasses. He may have been barefoot.

Anyone with information on his location is asked to contact the Sumner County Emergency Communications Center at 615-451-3838 or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND.