Virginia State Police Have Not Searched Home of Fugitive Coach Travis Turner as Manhunt Enters Sixth Day

APPALACHIA, Va. — Six days after Union High School football coach Travis L. Turner vanished just as state police were heading to his doorstep, authorities confirmed Tuesday that investigators have still not executed a search warrant on the small brick home where the 46-year-old lived with his wife and children.

Virginia State Police spokesperson Corinne Geller told reporters during a brief afternoon briefing that special agents were traveling to the residence on the evening of November 20 only for a “routine interview” in connection with an ongoing child-exploitation investigation. By the time they arrived in the quiet mountain town of Appalachia, Turner was gone, and his family reported him missing hours later.

“No search warrant has been served on the residence at this time,” Geller said. “Our focus has been on locating Mr. Turner safely.”

The revelation has stunned many in this tight-knit southwest Virginia community of 1,500, where Turner was widely known as the architect of Union High’s undefeated 12-0 football season. Neighbors told WJHL-TV that the Turner home on West Main Street appeared undisturbed in the days following his disappearance, with children’s bicycles still in the yard and the family’s vehicles parked in the driveway.

While investigators have scoured miles of rugged forest behind the property—using drones, K-9 teams, and helicopters—no law enforcement personnel have been seen entering the house itself, according to multiple residents who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Legal experts say the absence of a home search is unusual in cases involving allegations of child sexual abuse material, but not unprecedented when the primary suspect is actively fleeing.

“Without the suspect in custody and with the family reportedly cooperating, police may be holding off on a full forensic search until they have a better sense of what they’re looking for—or until they locate Turner himself,” said Radford University criminal justice professor Tod Burke.

On Tuesday morning, state police escalated the case dramatically, announcing ten felony warrants for Turner’s arrest: five counts of possession of child sexual abuse material and five counts of using a communications device to solicit a minor. Additional charges, Geller said, remain possible.

Turner’s wife, Leslie Caudill Turner, has not spoken publicly since deleting a Facebook post last week that read in part, “Travis is missing, & that’s all we know. We love him and need him here with us.”

As night fell Tuesday over the snow-dusted ridges of Wise County, the manhunt stretched into its sixth day with no confirmed sightings, no entry into the coach’s home, and a community left grappling with the widening gap between the man they cheered on Friday nights and the fugitive now wanted on child-sex charges.