As search shifts for missing California duck hunters, mother ‘just wants her babies home’
Every day April Clark begs, pleads, prays for her boys to come home.
Brothers Wesley Cornett, 17, and Andruw Cornett, 19, are somewhere in the waters of the Thermalito Afterbay near Oroville, less than an hour’s drive north on Highway 70 from their home in Olivehurst, Yuba County.
By Christmas Eve, it had been 11 days since the two went missing on a duck hunting trip on the afterbay Dec. 14.
In the days since that Saturday morning, Clark has posted raw, desperate pleas to her Facebook account.
Pleas for prayers. Pleas for walkers and divers to aid in an ever-lengthening search. Pleas for the boys she calls her babies.
“Day 10 I’m so lost and broken and still can’t wrap my mind around this all I just want my babies home,” Clark wrote on Monday. “Please keep praying everyone and if u can come out walking or u have a boat to search please come out and help find my babies.”
The agonizing post came the same day the Butte County Sheriff’s Office announced its decision to alter its search-and-recovery mission.
Divers and sonar failed to find them. Teams will now focus on a “continuous limited search” instead, the Sheriff’s Office said in a social media post accompanied by photos of the Cornett brothers, rainsoaked and in camouflage posing with their dogs and their quarry after a successful duck hunt.
“The search and recovery efforts for Andruw and Wesley Cornett have entered the tenth day at the Thermalito Afterbay. At this point in the recovery we have exhausted efforts with divers and sonar technology,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Their tools now are aircraft and boats, dogs and drones.
The last sign of the brothers came the morning of Dec. 14, Andruw calling Butte County emergency dispatchers to tell them Wesley’s kayak had overturned in the water and that he was going in after him. Neither were wearing life jackets, according to a Chico Enterprise-Record timeline of the moments before the brothers disappeared.
Stay out of the water, the dispatcher said. It was 8:34 a.m.
The Sheriff’s Office detailed the first frantic hours on its website, with deputies throwing everything into the effort: helicopters and drones; sonar, divers, searchers and dog teams.
The first deputy arrived at 8:47 a.m., followed at 8:55 a.m. by a Cal Fire’s Butte County water rescue team.
Sheriff’s marine searchers would spot a kayak and possibly one of the brothers just minutes later; then a paddle and waders.
Searchers from across Northern California — more than 280 people in all from 11 counties, state agencies and search and rescue teams — have since joined Butte County search teams to try to locate the Yuba County brothers.
A map detailing the search efforts on the afterbay shows a multicolored crosshatch, each line representing a single vessel’s recorded search, said Butte County Sheriff’s officials.
Divers specializing in deep underwater construction and heavy marine salvage found Andruw’s pants on Dec. 17. They found Wesley’s wallet on Dec. 19. Stanislaus County Sheriff’s divers found younger brother Wesley’s jacket the following day with his phone inside.
Days later, Sheriff’s officials have limited their search, and April Clark and her family are planning for the worst. She has organized a GoFundMe account to “find and honor her sons.”
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