An detective in the case of the disappearance and death of 13-year-old Dylan Redwine in 2012 said in court Wednesday that the boy’s father was uncommunicative as investigators prepared for a major search when the snow melted in the mountainous region where the teen had gone missing.
Tom Cowing of the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office testified that he left multiple voicemails and emails for Mark Redwine in the early days of June 2013. Redwine finally answered his phone on June 21, telling Cowing he’d dropped his phone in the sink and recently replaced it, the Durango Herald reported.
Redwine, who was out of state for work at the time, sought no information about the search from that day until Cowing called him again on June 25 to tell him “items of interest” had been found during the search, advising him to come back to Colorado.
Two days later, Cowing said, Redwine returned, and Cowing told him Dylan’s remains had been identified.
“He started to weep,” Cowing testified.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Redwine was arrested in Washington in 2017 and charged with second-degree murder and child abuse, years after Dylan’s death. He has maintained his innocence, but prosecutors say Redwine killed his son in a fit of rage over embarrassing photos.
As the trial nears the end of its second week, prosecutors have presented evidence highlighting Redwine’s apparent lack of interest in the search for his son, both immediately after his disappearance and later as the search continued. For example, he rarely participated in searches and stopped trying to call or text his son on the first night of his disappearance.
Dylan’s brother, Cory Redwine, and the boys’ mother, Elaine Hall, participated in the June searches, Cowing said.
Cowing also testified about a fishing pole investigators had been looking for since Dylan disappeared and Mark Redwine suggested he may have gone fishing, telling detectives the boy’s fishing pole was missing. Investigators repeatedly asked Redwine to look for the fishing pole, but he didn’t find it until July 2013 — weeks after Dylan’s remains were found — in Redwine’s garage, the Herald said.
Earlier in the trial, investigators testified they found Dylan’s blood inside his father’s home and that cadaver dogs had picked up death scents in three rooms. Defense attorney John Moran dismissed the findings, calling the use of cadaver dogs “junk science.”
The defense has argued that Dylan ran away and was likely killed by a wild animal.
Dylan’s remains were found miles from Redwine’s home in a rugged area difficult to reach, particularly for a young boy or someone who doesn’t know the area well.
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