The El Paso County Sheriff's Office announced Saturday that Ralph Pitcher had been located, thanking the public for its assistance.
The update came in a brief social media post from the sheriff's office stating simply that deputies had located Ralph Pitcher and thanking the public for its assistance, according to a post from EPCSheriff
. The announcement did not include details on how long Pitcher had been missing or the circumstances of where he was found.
The brief notice said deputies had located Pitcher and thanked the public for its assistance.
How El Paso County Broadcasts Missing Person Alerts
Searches like this one typically rely on Peak Alerts, the official regional notification system run by the El Paso-Teller County 911 Authority. The system uses Everbridge software to push emergency text, email, and phone messages to registered addresses across both counties during missing person searches and other local safety threats, according to the El Paso-Teller County 911 Authority.
The sheriff's office, led by Sheriff Joseph Roybal, oversees public safety across an unincorporated jurisdiction spanning 2,130 square miles and serving more than 740,000 residents, making El Paso County the most populous in Colorado.
This is not the first time the sheriff's office has turned to Peak Alerts to find a missing adult. Last month, the department issued a similar alert for 62-year-old missing woman in Manitou Springs, and in early September it sought help locating a Falcon woman who had walked away from a group home and needed medication.
State Law Requires Rapid Response to Missing Adult Reports
Colorado law leaves little room for delay when a family reports an adult missing. Under Colorado Revised Statutes Section 16-2.7-102, law enforcement agencies are legally required to accept missing person reports without delay and cannot enforce a mandatory waiting period before beginning an investigation, according to Justia Law.
Beyond county borders, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation manages statewide Endangered Missing and Missing Senior Alerts, distributing bulletins to media outlets and highway message signs when requested by local law enforcement under state statute.
The pace of these searches is shaped in part by regional growth. Emergency service calls across El Paso County grew by 34 percent between 2012 and 2026, driven by an 18 percent increase in population, according to data from the El Paso County Board of Commissioners cited by Colorado Politics.
For now, the sheriff's office has closed the loop on Pitcher's case with its brief confirmation that he has been found. No further details about the search or his condition have been released.
