Boy reported missing found on island 5,500 miles away from home

(Image credit: iStock)

last updated 10 January 2015

Missing since September, a 9-year-old boy was found on a South Pacific island 5,500 miles away from where he was last seen.

When Billy Hanson failed to return to his mother's home following a visit with his father in Seattle, she reported him missing. Billy's father, Jeffrey, is an experienced sailor, and the authorities immediately started an international search. The pair was found in late October on the small island of Niue, 1,500 miles northeast of New Zealand and more than 5,000 miles from Seattle.

Jeffrey Hanson was arrested and returned to the United States to face charges of international parental kidnapping. Billy remained on Niue for several days while waiting for his mother to pick him up, and seemed to enjoy his time on the island, which locals call "The Rock." "I saw him at a barbecue on Friday and he did not look stressed," Michael Jackson, the editor of the Niue Star, told Agence France-Press. "He had a Niue T-shirt on and was enjoying himself."