Clearfield fields searched for injured man

Several mysterious phone calls had Clearfield police searching Friday for a man they believed was badly injured in a field somewhere.

But by Friday evening investigators had not found an injured man or received any reports of a man who was missing.

The incident began just before 2 a.m. Friday when emergency dispatchers received the first of four 911 calls from the same cell phone.

"The first few calls were very short. Nothing was said," said Clearfield Assistant Police Chief Greg Krusi.

The fourth call was about 15 minutes long but dispatchers still got little information.

On the 911 tape, a man who sounds to be in terrible pain can be heard attempting to talk to dispatchers.

"He said he was beat around the face and dragged into a field," Krusi said.

The alleged victim said he was beaten so bad he was having trouble seeing. The man gave no information regarding his identity.

"He said he thought he could see Smith's," Krusi said. Investigators were unsure Friday if the man meant a Smith's supermarket or possibly a house where a person named Smith lived.

The man was using a prepaid cell phone and was out of minutes, Krusi said. After phone contact with the man was lost, police bought more minutes through his phone company but their calls only went to an automated voice mailbox.

The phone company said the call to dispatch came from a cell phone tower near 700 S. Main in Clearfield. Police from several agencies and a helicopter from the Department of Public Safety searched a 10-mile radius area around that tower Friday.

Krusi said Clearfield did not have a Smith's supermarket, but there was one just over the border in Syracuse. Police searched around that Smith's store as well as Smith's in Roy, Layton and Sunset.

"We're at a loss," Krusi said after failing to find any sign of an injured man.

But detectives Friday did not believe the call was a prank.

"We took it that he was in a great deal of pain," he said.

The cell phone used was last registered to a Randy Hall. Investigators were tracking down every Randy Hall they could find based on driver's license records and past dealings with police, Krusi said. As of Friday, several Randy Halls had been contacted and all were OK and accounted for, he said.

When dispatchers asked if his named was Randy, "he really didn't acknowledge that was his name," Krusi said.

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