FARMINGTON — After a two-hour search by area emergency responders, police found a 7-year-old boy unharmed and playing alone in a neighbor’s unlocked mobile home Saturday afternoon.

The boy’s father, Dan Niemi, reported him missing about 4 p.m. after the boy left their Brier Lane mobile home, according to Rachel Heseltine, a Farmington police spokeswoman.

Niemi, 43, let his son, Dakota, walk alone to a friend’s house in the mobile home complex about 3 p.m. Moments later, Niemi learned that the friend and his family weren’t home, Heseltine said, citing police reports.

The father and other neighbors spent about an hour searching for the boy before calling police, who responded along with sheriff’s deputies, firefighters and game wardens, Heseltine said.

A Franklin County sheriff’s deputy used a tracking dog to follow the boy’s trail while other searchers checked vacant sheds and other buildings nearby, the reports stated. About 6 p.m., a Farmington police officer spoke by phone with another mobile home park resident whose two sons are also friends of the missing boy.

That resident, a woman whose family was away for the weekend, let police search her unlocked home, where the missing boy was found in a bedroom, playing with his friends’ toys, Heseltine said.

David F. Robinson — 861-9287

drobinson@centralmaine.com


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