It has been four years since Ryan D. Larsen walked away from La Vista West Elementary School and vanished without a trace. He was 11 years old. He had brown hair, hazel eyes, and a polka-dotted umbrella tucked under his arm. To this day, no one knows what happened to him.
Ryan disappeared on May 17, 2021, during what should have been an ordinary school day. The sixth-grader became frustrated while working on a math problem and stepped away to a separate room to calm down, something that was part of his routine.
A staff member was supposed to be with him. One left the room, and the replacement arrived late. In that narrow window, between 11:55 a.m. and 12:05 p.m., Ryan slipped off campus unnoticed.
His mother was not contacted until 12:27 p.m. A 911 call followed two minutes later. Officers arrived quickly and began searching the neighborhood around the school.
Around 1:45 p.m., a neighbor spotted Ryan near the Southfield Apartments on 84th Street and Harrison Street, roughly two blocks from school.
That was where he lived with his mother and older sister. He still had the umbrella with him. But he had no key to get inside, and he never made it in. That was the last confirmed sighting of him.
More than six weeks later, the polka-dotted umbrella turned up near a dumpster behind the apartment complex, close to where he had last been seen. Ryan was never found.
He lived with high-functioning autism, Tourette’s syndrome, and epilepsy. He was verbal with people he knew, but often went nonverbal around strangers.
He had a history of wandering and hiding in tight, enclosed spaces. Police described him as “the king of hide-and-seek.”
He had previously been enrolled in Project Lifesaver, a GPS tracking program for vulnerable individuals, but he repeatedly removed the bracelet and eventually stopped wearing it altogether.
Investigators later discovered that Ryan had searched online for phrases like “how to hide underground,” “how to avoid being spotted,” and “how to hide from police” before he disappeared.
Whether those searches reflected fear, curiosity, or something else entirely, no one has been able to say with certainty.
His mother filed lawsuits against the school district over the supervision failure that morning. Several were dismissed, but in 2025, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that a negligence lawsuit could move forward.
A prior petition to have Ryan declared legally dead was denied due to a lack of evidence confirming his death.
Ryan remains classified as endangered missing. He was wearing a black and gray hooded sweatshirt with orange lining, an Old Navy shirt, blue jeans, and black New Balance sneakers with red trim when he disappeared. He was 5 feet 8 inches tall and 125 pounds.
His case number is MP82527 in NamUs. Anyone with information is urged to call the La Vista Police Department at (402) 331-1582, referencing case number 21-4845. Ryan deserves to be found. His family deserves answers.
