A search is underway in northwest Harris County for 12-year-old Gavin Boker, who was last seen near 17800 Wood Bark Road in Spring around 7:30 a.m. Saturday. Authorities say Boker has autism and may need assistance, and they are asking residents to remain alert and report any information that could help investigators locate him.
The Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office confirmed the boy's disappearance and said search efforts have since expanded well beyond the initial location, according to Click2Houston. As reported by KHOU, crews have concentrated their efforts along Theisswood Road near Theiss Mail Route, pushing the search zone beyond the area around Wood Bark Road where Boker was last seen.
Deputy Daniella Palacios has joined the search, bringing with her Constable K9 Hades, a bloodhound trained specifically for tracking individuals with developmental and cognitive conditions. Christian Hudspeth is serving as logistics coordinator for the operation, per the same Click2Houston report.
A K9 Built for This Exact Kind of Search
K9 Hades is a Hanoverian and Plott hound scent-discrimination dog and, according to Harris County Precinct 4's Mark Herman, the only certified dog of that type in Harris County law enforcement. Hades trained at the Georgia K9 National Training Center specifically to track missing individuals with autism, Alzheimer's, and dementia — work that requires isolating a person's individual scent profile from the surrounding environment.
Deputy Palacios is Hades's handler and, per Herman, the first full-time female K9 handler in the history of the Precinct 4 Constable's Office. The pairing has a track record locally: Palacios and Hades previously located a missing autistic child safely in the 15000 block of Medina Lake Lane, a case Hoodline covered in a piece with Toddler Wanders For Hours as its headline.
Why Autism and Wandering Raise the Stakes
Boker's diagnosis places his disappearance in a category law enforcement treats with particular urgency. Under Texas Department of Public Safety regulations, an Endangered Missing Persons Alert can be activated once a missing child or adult has a documented diagnosis of an intellectual disability or pervasive developmental disorder, including autism spectrum disorder — but only after officers verify that diagnosis.
The urgency is rooted in data: nearly half of children with autism spectrum disorder wander or elope from safe settings at least once after age four, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The National Autism Association has reported that drowning is the leading cause of death following autism-related elopement, accounting for roughly 90% of wandering fatalities, which is why search teams typically move quickly to check nearby bodies of water.
Harris County Has Seen Both Outcomes
Local searches for missing autistic children in Harris County have ended both ways. Hoodline previously reported on the safe recovery of 15-year-old Mikael McComb, a nonverbal-communicating teen with autism who vanished from his Harris County home in June 2025 and was found through a community-wide search effort. But in September 2024, a 5-year-old boy with autism who wandered from his Cypress home was found deceased in a retention pond roughly a quarter-mile away, underscoring the danger retention ponds and drainage channels pose in Harris County's suburban subdivisions.
Authorities have asked anyone who sees Gavin Boker or has information on his whereabouts to contact Precinct 4 dispatch at 281-376-3472. The constable's office also operates the C4 NOW mobile app, which pushes real-time emergency alerts to residents and allows tips to be submitted directly during active searches.
