A haunting last photo is all that his parents are left with.

The photo is a close-up shot of his face, set against a bleak, dark landscape.

He's alone, we think, he is lost, we believe, and he is very afraid.

How he vanished has never been solved.

He was a boy scout, age 12, and he vanished into thin air.

He was with his scout group on a hike.

There one minute, gone the next.

It was July the 19th, 1991, and 12-year-old Jared Negret was on his first overnight camping trip.

In the San Gorgorillo Wilderness of California, in the

south-eastern part of the San Bernardino National Forest, north of Beaumont and Banning, an area

the L.A. Times calls a breathtaking bramble of rocks and dozens of trails, many of which

meander to nowhere. After Jared disappeared, a subsequent 19-day search for him found only his camera,

with that last haunting photo, and some candy wrappers.

How could you vanish in the middle of the wilderness?

No transport out of there, no route out apart from a very long hike.

His mother, Linda Negret, said the hardest part is at night, knowing he's out there by

himself in the wilderness. His mother had called out to her son over a public address system

for days from a helicopter circling the search area.

Associated press searches find a camera belonging to Jared.

Camera found as they followed footprints they believed were made by the missing boy.

The film in the 5'2-150-pound boy's camera was developed, but proved to be of no use to searchers.

All it had was the close-up of his face.

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