GRANDVIEW, Mo. (WDAF) — Friends of a Missouri teen found dead days after he was involved in a crash are questioning how hard police searched for him.
Friends searching on their own found 19-year-old Caleb Hansen’s body Sunday.
The crash happened last Wednesday. Hansen got into a wreck with another car in Grandview, Missouri. Police said Hansen wasn’t at the crash scene when they arrived.
“I don’t believe to this day that Grandview police are feeling what we feel today,” Hansen’s friend Dallis Henderson said. “We are so hurt by the actions that they took.”
Henderson said he searched for his friend for days.
“We didn’t want to find him like that,” he said.
Four days after the crash, Hansen’s friends found his body.
“We’re talking about a man that could have been saved,” Henderson said. “We’re talking about a man that could have been taken care of.”
Henderson said it’s possible Hansen ran from the crash, admitting it’s possible he might not have been sober and was scared.
Henderson said he feels as though searching for Hansen wasn’t a priority for police.
Grandview police said they searched for Hansen the night of the crash, and on Friday, officers used department drones when family let them know Hansen was still missing.
“They didn’t take the time of the day to go out here and look like we did,” said Joe Morales, Hansen’s friend.
Morales said Hansen was found about 400 yards from the crash.
Friends told WDAF that the spot where they found Hansen’s body was the same spot they checked only one day earlier. Now they believe he survived the crash but died waiting for help.
Loved ones started a GoFundMe to help with his funeral expenses.