UPDATE: Search near Kensal comes up empty for missing man

RURAL FOSTER COUNTY, N.D. — Community members gathered near a bridge over the James River Thursday with tears in their eyes after more than seven hours of dragging the bottom of the river turned up no trace of a missing Kensal area man.

Josh Blahna, 26, has been missing since Sunday. Footsteps from his parked car led investigators to a shoe his mother later identified as her son’s, said Mike Tufte, Foster County sheriff.

Crews are searching a stretch of the James River at Highway 9 to about five miles north of Arrowwood Lake. The search is in an area about 10 miles northwest of Kensal.

Blahna’s white 1992 Buick was found less than a third of a mile from the James River off to the side on his mother’s driveway, Tufte said. Footprints in the grass to a barbed wire fence led to a site on the river where a white athletic shoe was found.

The car had a flat left rear tire and no drugs or alcohol were found inside, he said.

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