Dana Massey
Scott Chitwood

TILTON, Ga. — “It’s like he stepped off the boat and vanished in thin air ... even though that’s not humanly possible,” Dana Massey said Wednesday, the sixth day in the search for her missing 19-year-old son.

Mrs. Massey said she is convinced that her son, Brett Andrew Thomason, did not run away to avoid reporting to Marine boot camp in April, though she wishes that was the case.

The mother said she has accepted that her boy likely is dead.

“He’s in the river or frozen to death on the outskirts and they just haven’t found him yet,” she said. “But, I’ve got enough faith in God to know it’s not over until God says it’s over.”

Whitfield County Sheriff Scott Chitwood held a news conference earlier Wednesday and said investigators are “dumbfounded” by the teen’s disappearance and are pursuing every possible theory.

He said Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents administered a polygraph test to 15-year-old Collin Parrish, one of two other teens on the boat trip last Thursday, the night Mr. Thomason disappeared. He said results of the “lie-detector” exam will not be immediately released, though.

Macie Hinman, 16, was the other passenger in the boat.

The sheriff said the missing man’s friends and family have been very cooperative.

“We can’t stop the rumor mills in the community and we understand that, but we have to deal with the facts we have at hand,” Sheriff Chitwood said.

Mrs. Massey said she in no way suspects that Mr. Parrish or Ms. Hinman had anything to do with her son’s disappearance.

Attorney Todd Ray said Ms. Hinman’s family hired him to help channel all of the questions and requests. He said his client and her family have been very cooperative, and authorities have asked Ms. Hinman also to take a polygraph test.

“We may take a private polygraph test in the future, but at this time we’re not inclined and not comfortable with the test that authorities want to administer,” Mr. Ray said. “This family has been put through a lot and pulled in several different directions.”

The search for Mr. Thomason continued on Wednesday as several dozen community volunteers combed the woods, and Department of Natural Resources personnel continued to search the river.

Sheriff Chitwood said the DNR will search the water until expected rains Friday and then will search every two or three days for weeks to come.

“Typically when we have a body in the water it does not go too far from where they entered,” he said. “If the rains come they may stir a strong current and knock some things loose.”