More than two years after her son’s disappearance, Elaine Hatfield blames his death on her ex-husband and Dylan’s father, Mark Redwine.
And she is discouraged and angry that he has not been charged with his murder.
“I know he killed Dylan,” she said in a phone interview from her home in Monument, where she and her two sons had moved in 2012, before her son’s disappearance. “It amazes me that he (Mark Redwine) can just leave, and we will not know where he is.”
Dylan was on a court-ordered visit to see his father in Vallecito over Thanksgiving when he disappeared in 2012. A few of his bones were found on Middle Mountain in June of 2013.
Mark Redwine has steadfastedly maintained his innocence, saying he left his son at home on the Monday before Thanksgiving to do errands in Durango.
Hatfield said she is concerned about her and her family’s safety, including that of her eldest son, Cory Redwine, and his new son.
“I’m just at a level of frustration,” she said. “Where is Dylan’s case?”
She says she’s been told by investigators with the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office that they have handed the case to District Attorney Todd Risberg. She has not heard from anyone in the district attorney’s office, or from the county’s new sheriff, Sean Smith, who was elected in 2014.
“This was the murder of my son,” she said. “They’re minimizing it. And I fear for our safety. I don’t understand where it (the case) went. It seems like the perpetrator has all the rights.”
On Friday, Feb. 6, her son’s 16th birthday, she received calls and messages from friends and from reporters who have been covering the case since Dylan disappeared, but she did not hear anything from law enforcement.
“I feel like we’re all by ourselves,” she said. “I know there’s a process. I’m not naive. But when does the process work for the victim?”
The investigation of her son’s disappearance and death “needs some attention now,” she said. “The day he went missing, it didn’t get the attention then. They kept insisting he was a runaway. I told them he was not a runaway.”
All of the evidence points to her ex-husband, she said.
“Two years later, he’s gotten rid of everything in the house,” she said. “I want to spur La Plata County to get going, but I’m not sure what it will take.”
