Thank you God for answering everyone's prayers and bringing little Cole home alive!!

Just here: http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=9201504&nav=menu102_2

Thanks Manue -- I actually link the same site in the post above, just not that specific page.

Miracles really do happen. All I can say is the family has a big job ahead. States evidence, witness protection program and lots of therapy for that baby.

I didn't realized that when I posted my comment... time to go to bed, definitely!

I'm so relieved this little boy was found - I've thought about this boy non-stop since I heard what happened and just imagined my own little boy in his shoes. I'm an agnostic but have no shame in saying thank God - maybe there is a God after all.

I am so relieved that Cole is safe.

I try not to get too emotionally invested in these news stories, but I'll be danged if I ain't doing the Happy Dance this morning! It's just not that often that one sees the child found and in good condition like this. Right the F on, ladies & gents! I'm in a GREAT mood this morning.

Praise God! This is terrific news, and definitely falls into the "miracle" catagory, if you ask me.

Thank God! Now, I hope they find out those who were responsible for putting this poor child through this. I also hope the rumors about his mother being involved are not true. I haven't really followed the case, just thankful that he has been found alive!

Great coverage Steve!

I am so happy that little Cole has been found. Hunter -- I know what you mean. With so many of these stories that end tragically, it made me truly smile to know Cole is going home. Now, they better make sure this child stays safe!!!

I am so happy that little Cole has been found. Hunter -- I know what you mean. With so many of these stories that end tragically, it made me truly smile to know Cole is going home. Now, they better make sure this child stays safe!!!

Thank God, little Cole is safe. But, but, our borders are still wide open and Mexican Drug Lords, wander freely in and out of our country.

The police department made a deal with the Mexican Drug Cartel, to get this little boy back.

Mexico wanders in, kidnaps our children and make deals with their lives.

Welcome to the New America!!!!!! What America? Welcome, to Mexico.

I am so relieved they found Cole alive..actually I'm relieved the kidnappers felt an ounce of compassion and let him go. After reading how the drug runners have killed somewhere around 3,700 people this year made me wonder if Cole would be found alive. Steve, I am glad you mentioned that "Joe" sounded female to you. After reading "his" posts, I also felt that this was a woman giving inside information. They way they wrote and the detail that went into it sounded like a woman. I also wondered why Julie never went on camera, I'm sure the police have good reasons but I would think since his father went on tv, she'd do the same. I mean you see these stories where the mother/father/bf were involved in some crime w/their children but to show they are innocent, they go on tv. All in all, I am so glad and so thankful Cole has been found alive and is safe. I hope his father gets sole custody now and moves far away to keep this child safe! I have been a faithful reader of yours Steve and I am just so glad you have time to keep this site! You've made me a true crime junky!

Wonder where 'Joe' is this morning....I was hoping for some inside updates as to how Cole is doing.

Been wondering where Joe is myself. FWIW, I've e-mailed Joe at least once -- no response there. Curious, but I'm keeping as open a mind as possible.

Rosie--do you have a link to information of a deal being made?

Someone took good care of Cole during his ordeal, and I'm willing to bet it wasn't the same strong-arm thugs who took him. Maybe God put the right person in the right place at the perfect time and they let Cole go. Could have been an informant working for the good guys, or a female family member of the thugs.

I don't believe for a minute that the Mexican Mafia had mercy on this poor child. Someone probably felt the FBI closing in and ran, or thew caution to the wind and saved the boy, or we had someone on the inside. Just my opinion, of course.

If someone risked their own life to free the boy, God help them.

Susan, don't feed that troll. There's an undertone to that post that is unmistakable to me, and not worth responding to.

Praise God, my family has been praying since we heard that he would be alive and by some miracle would be unharmed. I can not explain how happy and relieved I am to hear he was found. That is a miracle that he was in good shape when he was found. I will now pray for cole and his family during this time.

I join the others in saying how relieved I am that Cole was found and is physically well. It will be interesting to learn just who, and where he had been kept prior to his release.

Now my concern is for his future welfare and safety. At this point all family members should be thoroughly checked out before he is released to their care.

Rose, you should re-read Steve's post. He's not referring to Cole as a troll. He's obviously referring to another blogger. You should carefully read what others say before you throw your daggers and look like a complete jacka** and criticize America and our citizens. It is people like you who jump to conclusions without understanding what you've read. I bet you also believe the particle smasher in Geneva will create a giant black hole and eat the Earth too.

This is such amazing news. I am just elated that Cole is alive and well. It just goes to show you, we can never give up hope until there is none left.

Thanks for keeping this story updated and everyone informed as you have Steve.

Thank you, Andrea. I was referring to "Rosey," who is the same person who signed off as "Rose" -- same e-mail address and IP address. That person was probably a racist troll using the very real and troubling issue of illegals and crime crossing the border to express their bigotry. I grew up in a very racist, bigoted culture and can smell the Roses/Roseys of this world a mile away. I'm allergic to them. They always make these pronouncements about America being "asleep," etc., and they always bemoan the horrors wrought upon our country by dark-skinned folk. Rose/Rosey can take that talk to plenty of other websites and they'll be welcome.

You all should be clear on what I mean when I use the word troll in this context. It seems fewer people know this than I thought.

"An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion."

Rose/Rosey used Cole's kidnapping/safe return to try and provoke some sort of emotional response and disrupt the discussion. That's why the comment to which you responded, Andrea, has been deleted. Classic trolling. When I say "don't feed the troll," I mean just ignore them -- trolls thrive on attention. This is too much attention already for this one, so I hope we can consider the subject closed.

Thanks,

Steve

That's fantastic news, thanks for keeping us updated Steve. I hope the boy and his family are eventually able to get over this and live the rest of their lives in peace.

This news just made my day! I had serious doubts Cole would ever be found, much less found alive.

Until this country reaches the point where we are sending specially trained squads to kill everyone (and I don't look for this to happen)involved in the Mexican drug trade, and any other foreign drug invaders, the madness will continue. This is the ONLY thing these folks will understand.

Kevin wants to start a war with drug dealers! What a swell and fresh idea Kevin.

Maybe we should start a new police force to concentrate on nothing but drug dealers and have them go around the world working on the problem. Oh, wait, the DEA has been doing that all along. They even have the military working with them, and they continue to fail!

The problem is, Kevin, that lots of people like to use drugs and they don't like government telling them what to do. Governments cannot stop people from doing what they want. Thomas Jefferson knew this. Our founding fathers generally agreed that government that governs least governs best, and when you try to solve a problem like drug abuse by prohibition, you create other, greater problems. Prohibition of alcohol proved that. Now Alcohol companies have a monopoly on legal recreational drugs, and criminals have an open market to sell everything else.

The drug war is a failure. Our country has thousands of people like this grandfather, staying afloat by dabbling in illegal drug sales - and millions of people who quietly use illegal drugs recreationally, without hurting anyone. Why are the news stories so quick to say it is Meth that the grandpa was involved with? Isn't pot a more likely scenario? Meth is scarier, but I believe pot is more likely, and when the final investigation comes out, I bet there was a lot more pot than meth being smuggled.

Killing drug dealers will not stop the problem Kevin, it will only create more victims and more killing.

Legalizing the drugs, taxing and regulating them, as the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition suggest, is a far more sensible and effective proposal to address the problems that drugs (like alcohol also) create.

The only interests who would have anything to fear by pot legalization would be alcohol companies.

Can someone at least please explain to me why pot is illegal anyway?

It's real simple. Even if I agree with you, I'm not letting these comments turn into some discussion about our country's drug policies, immigration or anything else. It doesn't fit. If I do a post about those subjects -- definitely a possibility, such comments will be appropriate. They aren't, here. So any more of those, and they get deleted for being off-topic.

Ok, sorry to get off topic.

This story is all about drug dealers kidnapping an innocent kid as leaverage to get to his grandfather, right?

The grandfather seemed like a typical middle class family guy. Now people are starting to say the poor kid's mother is falling under suspicioun because she "had to know" what was going on.

This type of kidnapping is shocking to us, but it is apparently commonplace in Mexico, where drug dealers battle for control of lucrative drug markets.

It looks like the battlefield has gotten close enough to where young innocent middle class suburban children are being swept up into it, and it is not just ghetto kids in big cities or foreign countries anymore.

Is that still relevant to the topic?

Close enough.

"Our country has thousands of people like this grandfather, staying afloat by dabbling in illegal drug sales "

DABBLING in illegal drug sales? And you know how deep his involvement was, how? I mean, if the reports are true - that he stole 6-8 million dollars of drug money, I'd hardly call that "dabbling." Nor would I call him a "typical middle class family guy." (How you could possible determine that from news reports, is beyond me.)

The fact is, the grandfather's reckless behavior may have gotten his 6 year old grandchild kidnapped by a drug cartel. That isn't "dabbling", nor is it "normal."

The fact that Cole was released NOT to his mother, but to his father early this morning indicates to me the LE have much more information regarding the mother, Julie than they've released.

In this AP notice it stated " The home appeared sparsely furnished, with a bare mattress on the living room floor. No one answered the door."
http://tinyurl.com/5jd5bw

We know she had purchased a home elsewhere in August, so why wasn't she living there? Had she not yet completely moved out, or was she there for a specific reason on the 15th?

"Joe" said that the kidnappers had made contact with the mother a few months back, looking for the grandfather. Which house was that? The new one, or the one where she was found? If true, could the mother have been in hiding at the time of the kidnapping?

Sorry I have no other reason for not posting other than working late last night and than the obvious of last night being very eventful for good reason. I was originally keeping such close tabs on this site and others to help find Cole and keep people looking for him, now that Cole has been found I definitely feel that the mission has been accomplished. I like to think everyone out there who kept a vigilant eye on this investigation and kept the interest up to find this little boy helped bring him home. To me it doesn't really matter why he was release or how it happened but that it did. This news made my year. i finally slept for the first time in days last night and all seems right with the world again. Cole is doing well as I'm sure you all have heard and all the details are still coming out but there is still a long road in this investigation and for Cole and his family. The house is sparsely furnished because they no longer live there and yes that was the house he was taken from, but as I said before the day he was taken was to be the last day the family lived in that house. Steve thank you so much for the honesty and fairness in your reporting and most of all the fact that you generated so much interest. Cole was released to his father because there is still a lot of investigation to do at this point and that really probably is the safest place for him at the moment. Cole has of course seen his mother. Oh and one more thing, YESSSSSS!!!!!!!

Hmm, thanks "Joe" for the post although it strikes me strange that they would spend the night on a mattress on the floor when their other house is but a few miles away.

IE: It's possible they didn't have all of the utilities turned on yet. Maybe they thought they wouldn't be done moving their stuff until the next day or something like that?

So i was just watching the news and they said that Cole claimed "a friend of his grandfather dropped him off" and in this context they meant at the bus stop in which he was found saturday night.
I'm not sure if it's true because as we discussed before we can't exactly trust what the news says 100% but either way that is pretty interesting. either Cole knew that it was his grandpa's friend or the person "claimed" to be his friend, either way that's odd.

Maybe it was this woman who dropped Cole off. She may live in LV, but had some ties down my way as she was arrested last night.

Terri Leavy, 42, was taken into custody late Sunday and is being held in federal custody as a material witness in the abduction of 6-year-old Cole Puffinburger, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller.

Leavy is the companion of the boy's grandfather, Clemens Fred Tinnemeyer, who was arrested Friday in Riverside
http://tinyurl.com/5hngj5

yeah i have no idea who it was, i just found it odd. Also my mom just talked to a family member again and said Julie and Billy still haven't seen Cole? =/ That's horrible.

hi i am so glad they found him it brought a tear to my eye when i read it cos i am researching missing children in the uk. i hope cole is cery safe now. anyway i hope you were relieved. bye xxxxxxx