I can see how the child could have been missed. I doubt if the 600 people all converged on the square mile where he was found.
That area is heavily wooded. A well organized search would have been done in grid fashion with experienced woodsman searching just far enough apart so they could see one another. This way they will have eyes on every square yard.
If inexperienced searchers bunched up and stayed mainly on trails or purposely avoided thick brush, steep inclines or marshes then the kid could have been within a hundred feet of the closest searcher and never detected.
I was on such a search once which was the unorganized type. What a joke.
“I was on such a search once which was the unorganized type. What a joke.”
I was on one in 68’. Guy led us to the bodies but said he wasn’t the killer. They were two children buried out in the middle of nowhere but he had nothing to do with it. If I had been alone.....