Parents, troopers search for missing WHS student

WASILLA — Parents and authorities are looking for a Wasilla teenager missing for about a week.

Austin Sult, 15, disappeared after the Wasilla-Bartlett football game at Wasilla High School Oct. 10, according to Alaska State Troopers and his mother. Austin is presently on probation for undisclosed juvenile offenses and living in the Presbyterian Hospitality House in Wasilla, according to his mother, Rebecca McGuire. The family frequently visits him there, McGuire said.

“I go over and visit him there so his brother and sister can visit him,” she said. “We have a good relationship.”

“He’s been with me his entire life,” she added.

An absence of this length is unusual, McGuire said.

Authorities “need to get his face out there,” she said. “Who knows what’s happening to him? Usually, he would call his dad or me. This has been a long time.”

In the meantime, she’s added Austin to the list of faces on the Facebook page “Seeking Alaska’s Missing,” and asked local legislator State Rep. Mark Neuman to contact state officials on her behalf. Neuman’s staff said Thursday he was taking a hands-on approach to the search as a type of constituent service. School officials are aware of Sult’s disappearance, McGuire said.

Austin is a freshman at Wasilla High School, and McGuire said she suspects he’s likely still in the immediate area.

“All I can figure is, he’s got to be in the Wasilla area, Big Lake area,” she said.

Alaska State Troopers are treating the boy’s disappearance as a runaway case, according to spokesman Tim Despain.

If Austin — or someone who knows his whereabouts — is reading this story, his mother has a message for him.

“I’d tell him please come home because we love you and we miss you and we’re all worried sick,” she said. “We just want you to come home. Nobody’s mad at him.”

People with information about his whereabouts should call Alaska State Troopers at 352-5401, and press zero to speak with a dispatcher.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com.