Search continues for missing 17-year-old Chardon boy, as parents hope for safe return

CHARDON, Ohio - The parents of a missing 17-year-old Chardon boy are hoping that he will call them and say that he is safe.

Gino Tamburro was last seen on Tuesday at about 6 p.m. from the trailer park, where he splits time between his mother and stepfather.

“My son, Gino, put his coat on, walked outside, went around the house, like he always does to go see his mom. And that was the last I heard or seen from him,” said Gino’s father Michael Tamburro.

“I’m hoping he just shows up at the door, ‘I’m sorry, dad.’ Anything.”

Gino was wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers jacket and jeans. He is about 6 feet tall and weighs about 200 pounds.

“Gino, I don’t know if he got to my house and saw I wasn’t home, so I assumed he came back home. So I text him and said ‘I’m home if you want to come over.’ No response back. No nothing. But that’s not uncommon of him not to text right back,” said Sharon Paolucci, Gino’s mother.

“It’s a shock to everybody… He was only going four houses away from where he lives,” she said.

The Geauga County Sheriff’s office mobile command unit was set up at Maple Highlands Trail, about a mile from his parents trailer homes, for most of the day on Thursday. They plan to resume their efforts Friday morning. An Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation vehicle was also at the scene as police K-9s went into the nearby woods.

“We don’t have any indication of any foul play and we don’t have any indication that he’s done it before,” a sheriff’s deputy said.

Gino moved from Madison in July to live with his mother and help care for his stepdad.

“He helps me do everything. He’ll cook, he’ll clean… I can’t do a lot of things because I have a spinal injury. And he wanted to be here, so he wanted to home school so he could take care of me,” Tamburro said.