‘Case not closed’: Sheriff probes how 3-year-old boy missing for 3 days found alive by a ‘Good Samaritan’

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Investigators will continue to probe the disappearance of Christopher Ramierez after the three-year-old boy was found alive in the woods by a man guided by “divine intervention”.

The toddler was found naked five miles from his Texas home after reportedly chasing a dog into the woods.

He survived for three days until he was found on Saturday by a man who says he was compelled by the Holy Spirit to search a wooded area of Grimes County, about 50 miles northwest of Houston.

“The case is not closed,” Sheriff Don Sowell said in an interview with local broadcaster KWTX News 10.

“Our investigators, including the federal partners, state and local are wrapping up all aspects of it. We’ll be closing it out when it’s finished.”

After Christopher failed to return home on Wednesday, a multi-agency search was launched by the FBI Houston office, Texas EquuSearch and local volunteers with the use of drones, K-9 units and aircraft.

Mr Sowell said the boy was found a bit dehydrated and hungry, but in overall good spirits, at about 11am on Saturday by a man claiming to have been guided by God.

Tim Halfin says he was in a Bible study on Friday night when people began speaking about the boy lost for days.

“This is the first I’d heard of it. I’m not paying attention to news or anything, and I was prompted then by the Spirit to say ‘you will go look for that boy. You will search the woods’,” Mr Halfin told Click2Houston.

He added it was “divine intervention” that led him to a part of the woods, near a pipeline, about five miles from the family’s Plantersville home, off Texas Highway 249.

"I don’t know what to make of it. All I know is he was found safe," Mr Halfin said. "When I picked him up, he was still talking. He wasn’t shaking, he wasn’t nervous. The things I would expect. Maybe he just sensed, ‘I’ve been found’," he told ABC’s Good Morning America in a separate interview.

The boy was recovering in Texas Children’s Hospital for treatment and observation. His mother, Araceli Nunez, told the outlet through a Spanish translator she couldn’t explain how her son was rescued.

“This is definitely a miracle,” she added.