Man and child found dead in Gainesville during search tied to Oklahoma AMBER Alert

Gainesville police found a man and a child dead Wednesday, Oct. 14, during a search connected to an AMBER Alert for a father and child missing from Norman, Okla. The department said in a statement that day that positive identification would be left to the medical examiner. The statement did not give a cause of death.

Texas Rangers are assisting the investigation, which police described as active.

Oklahoma's AMBER Alert named the missing child as Andres "Harry" Furley, 4, and the father as Caleb Furley, 25, and listed Norman as where they were last seen. The alert said Caleb Furley had failed to appear for an exchange with the child's mother and was wanted on a parental-kidnapping warrant. Oklahoma Highway Patrol activated the alert for Norman police.

An earlier Oklahoma endangered missing advisory, dated Oct. 13, said Andres was last seen with his father about 7 p.m. Oct. 11. It said Norman police received the missing-person report Oct. 12.

The search reached Cooke County after a relative contacted Gainesville officers around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, police said. The relative reported that the pair had been seen at a North Grand Avenue business around 3 p.m. Monday. Police confirmed that officers had earlier taken a suspicious-contact report involving a man and a child at that business. An initial search, assisted by a drone, did not locate them, police said.

After the business opened Wednesday, an investigator reviewed surveillance video from Monday, according to the department. The footage showed people who appeared to match the missing pair walking away. The investigator then searched the surrounding area.

The AMBER system has North Texas roots. The Texas Department of Public Safety says the program began in Dallas-Fort Worth after 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted and killed in Arlington in 1996. Texas set up its statewide network in 2002. A 2023 state law honoring Athena Strand, who was kidnapped and murdered in Wise County in 2022, lets a local chief law-enforcement officer activate an alert before statewide criteria are verified, if the officer considers it warranted.

Oklahoma's Department of Public Safety lists its own guidelines for alerts. They call for a reasonable belief that an abduction occurred, imminent danger of serious injury or death, enough descriptive information, a child 17 or younger, and entry of critical details into the National Crime Information Center.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children counted 189 AMBER Alerts nationwide in 2024, involving 236 children. In its annual report, the center said Texas originated 54 of them, Oklahoma six and Arkansas six. It cautioned that those are alert counts, not population-adjusted abduction rates. The report also said originating agencies can ask another AMBER plan to extend an alert, and that six alerts were extended beyond their originating plan's boundaries in 2024.

_Editor's note: Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law._