Finding Ricky

Oct 29 2008

Published by Annie Bishop at 11:50 am under North Idaho Insider

Ricky Barnett is supposed to turn 29 next month. And, maybe he will but no one knows for sure if Ricky ever made it past his third birthday. You see, Ricky disappeared 26 years ago as he was visiting his grandparents at a ranch in Grangeville, ID. Ricky literally disappeared into thin air. No one has seen or heard from him since.

There is something about Ricky’s story, his precious face, his smile that has captured my heart since I first stumbled across his missing person poster a few months ago. I just couldn’t and still can’t understand how someone can go missing so long ago and still have no answers. His case is still open, and it has been since August 31st, 1982. Why after all this time has no one come forward? Why after all this time do we not know what happened to little Ricky:? I’ve gone over these questions dozens of times in my head- it was then I knew someone had to tell his story.

A delivery of 13, 000 chickens had just arrived at the ranch the morning Ricky disappeared. The owner of the ranch says Ricky was wandering between the barns and coops as more than 30 workers scrambled to unload the chickens. Ricky was last seen sitting on a wagon outisde a barn- 15 minutes later he was gone. No one knows what happened in those 15 minutes. Hundreds of neighbors searched the farm- from the pig pits to the hay stacks,l ooking for any sign of Ricky. After four days the search was called off- no Ricky, nothing. While the official search ended, there are a few people who have never stopped looking including his mother, Judy and Detective Joan Renshaw with the Idaho County Sheriff’s Department.