Reward offered in Kansas boy’s 1999 disappearance

An anonymous donor has put up a $50,000 cash reward toward solving the 1999 disappearance of a southeast Kansas boy.

Adam Joseph Herrman was 11 when he vanished from his adoptive family’s mobile home in the Butler County town of Towanda. The parents never reported him missing, and the case only came to light when an adoptive sister contacted law enforcement in 2008.

The Wichita Eagle reports Butler County Sheriff Kelly Herzet announced the reward Friday. Herzet says the donor is someone who wants to see closure for the family.

The sheriff regards the case as an open homicide investigation. No one has been charged in the disappearance, but the adoptive parents pleaded guilty in 2011 to collecting more than $15,000 in state adoption subsidies after the boy vanished.