Jessica Lary said when she and her husband first realized her son Jayden was missing about 3:45 p.m., Wednesday, they started to search.
“My daughter told me, ‘When you went into your room, he said he was going to sneak out and look at the train,'” Lary said Thursday.
As part of Pittsfield’s 200th anniversary now being celebrated, Wednesday’s events included the a model train exhibit at Pittsfield Public Library.
As soon as she knew he was gone, Lary said, she started looking, posting his photo on Facebook and asking anyone who had seen him to call her or the Pittsfield police. The post initially was shared 130 times. While out searching, she said, her husband Matthew also alerted a police officer.
For three hours, they, a host of volunteers, the Pittsfield Police and Fire departments and the Maine Warden Service combed the area around Greeley and West streets for the 10-year-old.
She said her son — who has autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and, as she noted on her Facebook page, disruptive mood dysregulation disorder — has never run away before.
While her son eventually was found in the family home, she said he had not been there the whole time.
“He was down at Cedar Mill looking at the trains,” she said.
When he saw all the people looking for him, Lary said, he avoided them on his way back home, using boards to climb onto a closed porch.
“He said he was in his closet reading,” she said. “His closet is too small for that.”
Lary said Jayden was not hurt, and he was in Waterville on Thursday for a behavioral evaluation.
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