Three children — 8-year-old Violet Elmore, 11-year-old Mason Elmore, and 14-year-old Eli Casey — are missing from a residential neighborhood in northern Durango, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation activated a statewide Endangered Missing Alert on Wednesday to find them. The trio was last seen together around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday near the intersection of Needham Drive and Arroyo Drive, an area of northern Durango served by a local bus loop connecting neighborhood stops to downtown and Fort Lewis College. Law enforcement says the children have now been missing significantly longer than on prior occasions, and investigators have been unable to locate them at the places they normally frequent.
The alert, posted by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, describes Violet as a white female with blond hair and hazel eyes, standing 3 feet 4 inches tall and weighing 35 pounds. She was wearing a Hello Kitty shirt, glasses, and all-pink clothing. Mason is described as a white male with brown hair and brown eyes, 4 feet 5 inches tall and 57 pounds, last seen in a blue hooded sun shirt and black shorts with a red stripe. Eli, the oldest of the three, is a white male with brown hair and brown eyes who wears glasses, stands 4 feet 10 inches tall, and weighs 65 pounds. All three are believed to be together, and their family has expressed concern for their welfare.
Why an Endangered Alert, Not an AMBER Alert
Colorado law reserves AMBER Alerts for cases with verified evidence of an abduction posing immediate danger of serious bodily harm or death, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Because there is no confirmed abduction in this case, the state instead issued an Endangered Missing Alert, the designation used when officials determine missing individuals face serious risk even without proof they were taken by force. That distinction matters for how the public should read this case: it does not rule out danger, but it reflects the specific legal threshold investigators have — or have not — met so far.
Once activated, an Endangered Missing Alert triggers automated distribution of missing-person details to regional radio, television, and digital news outlets across Colorado, and if a vehicle is identified, the Colorado Department of Transportation can broadcast those details on highway message signs, per CBI. The Durango Police Department is the requesting agency and has asked that anyone who spots the children call 911 or reach the department directly at 970-385-2900.
Local Tools Durango Police Can Deploy
Durango police have aerial drone technology at their disposal for search-and-rescue operations, having used an overhead drone to locate a missing 12-year-old near the Animas River in April, as reported by The Journal. The department also relies on Flock Safety automated license plate readers positioned on key roadways, which generate real-time hotlist alerts to dispatch if a flagged vehicle passes a camera, according to the City of Durango. Those tools could prove useful if the children are found to be traveling by car, though no vehicle has been identified in connection with this case.
A Pattern of Statewide Alerts
This is not the first time Colorado's alert network has helped bring missing children home. In January 2024, a CBI Endangered Missing Alert supported a multi-agency search that safely recovered two missing children, ages 9 and 10, in Hotchkiss after a multi-state investigation involving federal task forces, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. Colorado's alert system has expanded steadily in recent years; the state became one of the first in the nation to add a dedicated Missing Indigenous Person Alert in December 2022, joining AMBER Alerts, Endangered Missing Alerts, Senior Alerts, and Developmental Disabilities Alerts as part of CBI's six-part protocol, per SECO News.
The scale of the challenge facing families and investigators is significant. CBI's 2025 Annual Report logged 518 entries in the state's cold case missing persons database, with nearly half of all registered missing individuals in Colorado remaining unaccounted for a year or longer. Nationally, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children supported more than 32,000 missing children cases in 2025 and resolved 90% of them, though 92% of those reports were classified as endangered runaways — a category that carries its own risks, since the organization estimates 1 in 7 endangered runaway children reported to it are likely victims of child sex trafficking.
Anyone with information about Violet, Mason, or Eli's whereabouts is urged to call 911 immediately. The public can also find updates directly through CBI's alert system at cbi.colorado.gov/alerts. Hoodline previously reported on a related regional case, the Towaoc killing reward push, as federal and local investigators in the Four Corners area continue working through both active and cold missing-persons cases.
