Mom battling stage 4 cancer pleading with community to help find her missing son with learning disabilities
HOUSTON - With cold, rainy weather moving in Tuesday night, one Houston mother is pleading with the community to help find her 17-year-old son, who has multiple learning disabilities. Micah Byrum, 17, stepped outside his River Oaks apartment Saturday night for fresh air, and hasn’t been seen since.
"I was just telling him you have to do your chores. You have to get along with your siblings," said Kate Byrum-Kocurek, Micah's mother.
What started as any ordinary parent-child conversation, quickly turned into a desperate search for son’s whereabouts.
Kate Byrum-Kocurek said Micah went for a walk around the Avalon Square Apartments off Westheimer and Kirby Drive around 10 p.m. Saturday night and disappeared.
Within 15 minutes, Kate and her husband began searching for him outside.
"I looked both ways and across the street. I thought we would walk this way because this is the way we walk his little sister to school. He left his phone, he left his shoes, he left in exactly what he was wearing. Black basketball shorts with red accents and a navy t-shirt," Kate said.
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For the last two and a half days, Kate, her husband Brandon, and Micah’s four siblings have been passing out flyers and looking for clues through nearby surveillance video. They even checked his online gaming chatrooms for information.
So far, Houston Police, the Texas Center for the Missing, and Texas EquuSearch have all been alerted.
"It’s going to get colder, and he’s going to be outside tonight. He’s going to be hungry, and he’s going to be cold. And he’s going to get sick. I do not know how this family will get through Christmas without him and that is my biggest fear is that we are not going to have him home," Kate said.
The family moved to Houston from Texas City in June so Kate could be closer to her cancer treatments.
"I have stage 4 neuroendocrine cancer, and it is spreading. It’s already in my liver," she said.
Kate worries Micah, who suffers from multiple learning disabilities, will be too unfamiliar with the area to find his way home.
"I’m concerned that he may be lost. He’s dyslexic and dysgraphic. I want my boy home. I don’t care about missing appointments; I don’t care about anything. I just want my boy home," Kate said.
Micah is described as 6'1", 260 lbs, with light brown hair. He was last seen wearing dark clothing.
Anyone with information is urged to contact HPD Missing Person’s Unit at (832) 394-1840.