Authorities reopen case of boy missing since `71

ALFRED — State police have reopened a 22-year-old investigation into the case of an Alfred toddler who disappeared from his back yard.

Douglas Chapman was 3 years old when he disappeared on June 2, 1971, while playing outside his parents’ mobile home while his mother was inside on the telephone.

For more than two decades, police have had no clues in the case. Recently, police received new information that has prompted them to reopen the case, state police Detective Michael Harriman said Tuesday.

Harriman refused to discuss the new information, which he said surfaced when the child’s father, Gary Chapman, now of Waterboro, contacted police in March.

Harriman said Chapman asked that the case be reopened after he and his ex-wife, Carole Allen, discussed the mystery of their missing son.

Carole Allen, who now lives on Long Island in New York state, said Tuesday that she last saw Douglas playing near his sand pile outside their home. He was wearing a red and blue plaid shirt and red pants.

She said that she has coped with the emotional grief since 1971 by imagining that her son was taken by someone who “cared for him and loved him all these years.”

“It’s been a terrible, long 22 years. … It’s just like he was swallowed up and disappeared without a trace. Hopefully the police will come up with something that can help us find an answer to this,” she said.

She still wonders why searchers could never find his loafers or other clues.

“Loafers don’t stay on too well in the mud, and little children don’t normally stop and pick up their shoes when they fall off,” she said.

She also finds it strange that the boy’s dog never barked when Douglas disappeared because the two were inseparable.

“There are more questions than answers,” she said.

Carole Allen said she understood the case had been reopened because she and Douglas’ father had pleaded with police.

“Someone out there must know something. It doesn’t make sense that a child should disappear and nobody saw anything,” she said.

Harriman said police recently reviewed details of the investigation and talked with police who worked on the case in 1971.

“After doing that, we found information that we felt we needed to follow up on further, and we’re presently working on that information,” he said.

The search for Douglas remains the largest missing person search ever in York County.

The massive six-day effort included as many as 3,000 volunteers, including dozens of high school students and three self-proclaimed psychics.

State police bloodhounds lost the boy’s scent in a nearby yard. Navy, National Guard and state aircraft were utilized. Scuba divers searched muddy bogs and streams. Officials even pumped local wells dry to look for the boy.

At the time, authorities believed the child had wandered off.