'He came out of the bushes with a dog': Kentucky 6-year-old safe after 3-day search in mountains

Valarie Honeycutt Spears, Lexington Herald-Leader on Nov 3, 2026

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Jacob Mullins, an avid horse trail rider from Louisa, said he got a text Monday night from his friend Patrick Finley, about Roman Heilman, the 6-year-old boy with autism who went missing Sunday from his home and was thought to be in a wooded mountain area.

Mullins said Finley, a welder who lives across the state line in West Virginia, texted, “Let’s take off work and go find this kid.”

“So that’s what we did,” said Mullins, who owns J&J Window Cleaning in Louisa.

Mullins said while they and a team of 10 horse trail riders were looking for Roman Tuesday, the boy and a little dog walked out of the bushes about 1 1/2 miles from his home where he walked away. Roman “was covered in briar scratches,” but was in good shape, Mullins said. Kentucky State Police announced the news at 11:30 a.m.

“There was about 10 of us,” Mullins told the Herald-Leader. “We were all on horses in the woods before daylight. And we rode the horses a total of 14- plus miles, trekking around trying to find him. We found him probably about a mile and a half from his house. He came out of the bushes saying ‘E-I-E-I-O horsey.’ He just walked right out of the bushes over onto a horse trail.”

“He was naked and he was scratched and he had a little dog with him. He ate a banana and drank some water and then we brought him off the hill,” said Mullins.

Roman’s pants, jacket and diaper were found earlier in the search, authorities said.

The horse trail riders, men and women, had brought the water and a banana, and a couple of fruit gummy snacks with them, which Roman also ate.

“We wrapped him up in a sweatshirt, put him on the horse and started bringing him off the mountain,” said Mullins. “He was fine.”

“When I left, he was in the ambulance. He was, supposedly in good shape, just a little dehydrated.”

“It looks like he was just traveling the mountaintops, really,” Mullins said. “You can see his footprints where he played in a mud hole.”

Hundreds of volunteers and people using horses, drones and aircraft searched for the child in the mountains and woods around his home for three days.

Mullins said he thinks the motorized vehicles “looking for Roman in the mountain range were scaring him” due to the noise.

“And I think without the horses, he wouldn’t have come out,” Mullins said.

Roman reportedly walked away from his home at about 4 p.m. Sunday.

Kentucky State Police did not discuss details Tuesday, other than to say Roman was safe and that “KSP extends its sincere thanks to all local, state and federal partners, along with the hundreds of volunteers who assisted in the search.”