Hauser search still ongoing

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota authorities said Friday they were turning to an international law enforcement agency for help finding a woman and her 13-year-old son on the run from court-ordered cancer treatment for the boy.

Interpol, which coordinates police investigations across national borders, was joining the effort to find Colleen and Daniel Hauser.

“We’re putting every effort we can into this,” said Jason Seidl, a sheriff’s deputy in southern Minnesota’s Brown County. The FBI and other agencies were already involved.

Colleen and Daniel, who has Hodkgin’s lymphoma, left Minnesota after a court-ordered X-ray on Monday showed his cancer was growing. The most recent confirmed sighting of the pair was Tuesday morning in southern California, before authorities in Minnesota even realized they had left the state. Investigators suspect they might have headed to one of a number of alternative cancer clinics in northern Mexico.

A southern California woman who authorities said may have been traveling with the Hausers told The Associated Press on Friday that she was at home in the Los Angeles area and: “I’ve been here for many days.”

“I’m not traveling with the Hausers,” Susan Daya Hamwi said in a brief phone interview with the AP. When asked if she helped the Hausers leave their Sleepy Eye home, she said she would not comment. She did not take more questions, saying: “I can’t make any statements right now,” and she cut off the conversation before a reporter could ask if she knew where the Hausers might be.

According to court testimony, Daya Hamwi attended Daniel’s X-ray appointment on Monday with the boy and his mother.

Dr. James Joyce, the Hauser family doctor, told the court on Tuesday that he tried to give Daniel more information about lymphoma but they rushed to leave.

“Under Susan Daya’s urging, they indicated they had other places to go,” Joyce testified.

Seidl said he could neither confirm nor deny whether Daya Hamwi was indeed at her home on Friday, and he could not provide additional comment.

Doctors say Daniel has a cancerous tumor growing in his chest that’s likely to kill him without chemotherapy, but the Hausers prefer alternative medicine.

Brown County Sheriff Rich Hoffmann was in California himself Friday, but Seidl said it wasn’t because of the Hauser case. Hoffmann’s son, Jamie Hoffmann, had been called up from the minor leagues to make his debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the outfield in a home series this weekend.

Seidl said Hoffmann wouldn’t be back in New Ulm until next Tuesday, but that he was in close touch with his investigators. It’s been a high-profile case for the Brown County Sheriff’s Office, a small department with just 10 sworn officers and about 30 civilian employees.

“We don’t go through something like this every day,” Seidl said. “But you do train for it, and you know the technology and methods that are available to you, and hopefully you’re ready for it.”

The sheriff’s office has given few details about investigative efforts in southern California. Seidl said FBI agents have been involved in looking for the Hausers in California, although Minneapolis FBI spokesman E.K. Wilson would only say the agency is helping the sheriff’s office.

Spokeswomen for the police departments in San Diego and Los Angeles said officers in those cities would only be called in to assist on specific information, and that hadn’t happened in either place.

Brown County has issued a felony warrant for Colleen Hauser’s arrest, which would ease extradition if she is caught in the United States. Authorities have said their options are less clear if the pair is already in Mexico.

On Thursday, Hoffmann spoke directly to Colleen Hauser at an afternoon news conference where he vowed to arrange her safe return without an enforcement action “if you have shown a good faith effort to come back.”

At the same press conference, Anthony Hauser — Colleen’s husband and Daniel’s father — asked his wife to call him and to come home. “If you’re out there, please bring Danny home so we can decide as a family what Danny’s treatment should be,” Hauser said.

Hauser did not return phone calls seeking comment on Friday.

Philip Elbert, the court-appointed attorney for Daniel, said Friday he hadn’t heard from his client.

The sheriff’s office also said Friday the Hauser family received a suspicious package at their home “from a concerned citizen who was trying to be helpful,” but that it turned out to be harmless. Seidl wouldn’t reveal the contents.

“It was nothing of concern,” he said.

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