After days of combing eastern South Dakota by ground and air, a missing Pierre man has been located. Hand County officials would only say 80 year-old Leroy Nye has been located and that more information will be released by mid-day Thursday. The e-mail that accompanied the press release stated quote “We will not comment on the search until mid-morning out of respect to the family.” The brief release thanked the may volunteers who searched and media members for keeping information on the search for Nye public. Wednesday saw a number of search missions conducted by the Civil Air Patrol. Pilots located a green four-door sedan similar to the car Nye was with. The car was located in a grassy area along a country road in Miner County. However, Miner County Sheriff’s officials found the car had 56-K license plates from Sanborn County, not the Hand County 33-M 2-0-2 plates on the car in question. Search flights were conducted yesterday from Brown to Charles Mix County along U-S Highway 281 and all of Beadle County for a second time. Searchers continued to fly into the early evening from U-S Highway 212 south to the Hand-Faulk County line and from Redfield east to South Dakota Highway 45 in the northeast part of Hand County. Ground searches were conducted Wednesday in Douglas, Spink, Faulk, Beadle, Hand, Hyde, Buffalo, Day, Brookings, Jerauld, and Hughes. The focus area were sloughs, waterways, culvert and bridges. Places where Nye could be if he lost control of his car. Nye had been missing since Sunday morning wearing only a T-Shirt and underpants.
