Mother Confident Son Will Be Found : Search Pressed for 3-Year-Old Laotian Who Vanished Monday

“Leave it to Beaver” droned on her television set while her friends chattered encouragingly, but the young Laotian mother wasn’t easily distracted. With the silent resolve of someone who has known pain, she focused on the front door of her tiny apartment in Linda Vista.

Someone would find her 3-year-old son who disappeared Monday, Soutchaay Casamthont predicted. Someone would find him. So she waited by the door without tears.

By mid-afternoon Tuesday, as searchers continued combing San Diego’s Indochinese community for her missing boy, Casamthont, 23, could still be found by the door--waiting.

“He’s a good boy,” she said of her cherubic son, Santi (Ole) Khanthomg. “He has never done this before.”

Searchers employed tracking dogs, scoured nearby canyons on horseback, conducted scores of interviews and even blared pleas for assistance in Indochinese languages from a loudspeaker on a helicopter.

But they could find no trace of the child Tuesday.

“We’re not stumped, but we’re not making a lot of progress,” said Officer Rick Carlson, a San Diego Police Department spokesman.

Ole was last seen about 1:30 p.m. Monday, playing outside the furnished studio apartment that he shared with his 9-month-old sister and divorced mother. When he disappeared from the 2200 block of Ulric Street, he was wearing a light green sweater over a red- and black-striped long-sleeved T-shirt, blue pants and sandals.

The boy speaks no English and reportedly is missing his front teeth.

On Tuesday, more than 100 civilian volunteers, police officers, sheriff’s deputies, sailors and Explorer Scouts canvassed the Linda Vista area, where the majority of San Diego’s 40,000 Indochinese refugees reside. Several people said they might have seen a boy matching Ole’s description, but none of the reported sightings could be confirmed.

One area resident, Belva Zay, 61, said that about noon Tuesday she saw a boy resembling Ole’s description, sitting on a wooden fence about a block from the Casamthont home. He was in the company of a white man who refused to answer when Zay asked him if he was the boy’s father.

“I got so excited, I ran over to the Neighborhood House (a senior citizen’s center) where I’m a volunteer and then I ran back, but by that time, they were gone,” Zay said. “The boy looked like the picture I saw on TV, except his face wasn’t as fat. I told the police as soon as I could.”

After speaking with Zay, investigators ruled out her tip.

“But we like to hear from everybody who thinks they might know something,” said one detective. “We check ‘em all out.”

Another angle checked out by investigators was the possible involvement in the case of Casamthont’s ex-husband, who lives in Texas. Police apparently ruled him out as a suspect.

The search for the boy halted about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday and is expected to resume this morning.

Word of the missing boy spread so quickly through the Indochinese refugee community Tuesday that language barriers presented investigators few apparent problems: Searchers simply displayed photos of Ole and more often than not were met with universal gestures indicating that the child had not been seen.

Ole’s unemployed mother, who came to the United States about two years ago, said that she had gone grocery shopping and had left a teen-age friend, Kongmany Thammavongsa, to watch Ole and his sister. Before Casamthont returned about 90 minutes later, Thammavongsa noticed that the boy was missing and began her own search. Others in the Astro Vista Apartments joined her but could not find the boy.

The San Diego Police Department was contacted and an all-points bulletin was issued soon afterward. Despite Tuesday’s lack of success, Casamthont remained composed and dry-eyed, confident that Ole would be found unharmed.

Yet, she conceded, she was worried about her son’s health. The boy was been taken to a nearby medical clinic Monday morning to be treated for an ear infection and flu-like symptoms.

“I hope he will be OK,” said Casamthont. “I know he will be OK.”

And she continued to wait by the door.