Background: News footage of the river where Dane Paulsen”s body was found in March (KPTV). Inset: Dane Paulsen (Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office).
An Oregon man whose 2-year-old son went missing from the family home and was found dead days later has been charged with child neglect.
Aaron Scott Paulsen was indicted by a grand jury on Oct. 16, months after his 2-year-old son Dane was found dead in a river two miles from his home. Dane was last seen in the backyard of his family’s home on March 1. On March 11, after a community-wide search effort, a diver with a volunteer group found Dane’s body. His cause of death was listed as drowning.
In court documents obtained by local Fox affiliate KPTV, Paulsen is charged with second-degree child neglect, accused of not watching his toddler before the little boy disappeared.
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Local ABC affiliate KATU reported on the indictment, in which the Lincoln County District Attorney’s Office stated that Paulsen was in “custody or control of Dane Paulsen, did unlawfully and with criminal negligence leave Dane Paulsen, a child under the age of ten years, unattended in or at a place, for such period of time as was likely to endanger the health or welfare of said child.”
Dane’s mother, Cha Met Jackson, spoke to KPTV about her disagreement with how the DA’s office handled the case, telling the outlet that she and her family believe the drowning was more than just an accident. Jackson told KPTV that she last saw Dane as he ran out of their house while she was checking on her father, who lived in a trailer on the property.
Jackson told KPTV, “Dane goes out the back door and comes straight to the trailer, I hear him he goes ‘[baby jibberish],’ and I was like, ‘Oh, bubby I’m coming.’ And then he laughs so oddly, like, laughing like somebody’s tickling him. And then it’s silence. And I was like, ‘Dane? Dane?'”
According to KPTV, Jackson said that she told police there was purportedly an unidentified man watching her and Dane from a distance. She also said she saw another man taking photos of trail cameras about two weeks before Dane went missing.
Now, Dane’s own father faces charges in connection with his son’s death while Jackson believes others should have been investigated. A warrant for Paulsen’s arrest was issued on Oct. 23 with bail set at $20,000. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Nov. 3.
