The Virginia State Police said Monday that leads have failed to turn up Travis Turner, a fugitive high school football coach wanted on child pornography and solicitation charges.
Mr. Turner, 46, was last seen leaving his home in Appalachia, Virginia, near the state’s border with North Carolina, on Nov. 20.
The state police visited him at his home with questions prior to his disappearance, and after he went missing, they disclosed that he faces five counts each of possession of child pornography and using a computer to solicit a minor.
The state police said Mr. Turner is considered a fugitive, that the 178 tips received from seven states were “unfounded” and no credible sightings of him have turned up since he went missing.
“We need the public to continue providing information. Someone knows something that will lead to his whereabouts,” said Capt. J. Daniels of the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s Wytheville Field Office.
Mr. Turner was the football coach at Union High School in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. He was put on administrative leave and banned from contacting students or accessing the premises before his formal termination on Feb. 9, according to Tennessee’s WJHL-TV.
Some people in Big Stone Gap claim to know where Mr. Turner is hiding out.
Stephen Murray, whose stepdaughter attends Union High, told the Daily Mail, “Everyone knows that he’s alive. No one believes that he took his own life, and the reason is because he’s too much of a coward and he thinks too highly of himself to take his own life. … People think that he’s in Texas with his sister.”
The Virginia State Police told the outlet that they have “not received any information to indicate that Travis Turner is in Texas.”
The state police ask that anyone with information call 276-484-9483 or email questions@vsp.virginia.gov.
They also said that the U.S. Marshals Service, which is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to Mr. Turner’s whereabouts, is taking tips at 877-926-8332.
