Gainesville police find man and child dead during search for missing Norman father and child
Police said the medical examiner will confirm identities after an investigator found two bodies near a North Grand Avenue business while looking for a missing Oklahoma father and his 4-year-old.
A Gainesville police investigator found a man and a child dead near a North Grand Avenue business on Oct. 14 while searching for a missing father and child from Norman, Oklahoma, the department said. Police have not confirmed that the two are the missing pair. The department said the medical examiner will make the positive identification.
The department's release called the case an active investigation and said the Texas Rangers are assisting. It gave no cause or manner of death.
Oklahoma issued an AMBER Alert the same day. The alert named the missing child as Andres "Harry" Furley, 4, and his father as Caleb Furley, 25. It said Caleb Furley missed an exchange with the child's mother and was the subject of a warrant for parental kidnapping.
The Gainesville search began two days before the discovery. Police said officers responded Oct. 12 to a suspicious interaction involving a man and child at a North Grand Avenue business. An officer searched with help from a drone but did not find them.
On Oct. 14, information from a relative led to new searches. An investigator reviewed the business's surveillance video and saw two people walking away who appeared to be the missing pair. The investigator then found the bodies nearby, according to the department.
Oklahoma treated the case as a missing-person matter before it issued the AMBER Alert. A state Endangered Missing Advisory issued Oct. 13 said the child was last seen with his father around 7 p.m. Oct. 11. It said Norman police were contacted the next day.
The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety uses the two alerts for different cases. The advisory covers endangered children 17 or younger who do not meet AMBER criteria. An AMBER activation requires a reasonable belief that a child was abducted and faces imminent danger of serious injury or death. Authorities must also have enough identifying information, and the case must be entered in the national crime-information system.
Texas sets a different test for abductions by a parent. The Texas DPS criteria for an abduction by a parent or legal guardian require an attempted murder or murder, in addition to the state's other requirements.
The alert system began in North Texas. Texas DPS says Dallas-Fort Worth broadcasters and police created the first AMBER program after 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted and killed in Arlington in 1996. The state set up its statewide network in 2002. In 2022, 7-year-old Athena Strand was kidnapped and killed in neighboring Wise County. The next year, Texas gave local agencies more authority: a local alert can now go out for a missing child when the police chief considers it warranted, even before the standard criteria are verified.
Family abductions made up more than half of the substantive AMBER cases analyzed nationally in 2025, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's annual report. Texas issued more AMBER Alerts that year than any other state, a little more than a quarter of the national total. Oklahoma issued one.
AMBER Alerts originated in Texas in 2025, the most of any state
That was 27% of the national total. Oklahoma originated one.
_Editor's note: Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law._
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