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As police and volunteer searches came to a hollow end yesterday, offering no sign of 15-year-old Brandon Crisp, his father vowed to keep up the fight to find his boy, whom he believes is alive and being held captive.

It was after Steve Crisp revoked Brandon's Xbox gaming system that the boy first ran away on Thanksgiving Monday. Yesterday, his lip quivering and his gaze determined, Mr. Crisp said he didn't realize how important the gaming system was to his son - and what taking it away would mean.

"This has become his identity, and I didn't realize how in-depth this was until I took his Xbox away.... That's like cutting his legs off," said Mr. Crisp, 45, in an interview with The Globe and Mail. "This is such an issue that hits every parent out there, with video games that are starting to control our kids' lives.

"Nothing means anything more to me now than getting my son home ... my message to Brandon is: if you're being held, stay strong, we're going to come and get you."

Massive searches haven't turned up a single clue beyond Brandon's bike, found a week ago.

Yesterday was the last day for volunteer searchers, as hundreds of supplies and reflective vests were packed away under the grey skies. The three-day police air and water searches have long since ended, fruitless.

Volunteers searched east of the police area. Terry Grant, the star of the TV series Mantracker, flew out from Alberta to help train the volunteer searchers on how to effectively comb the brush, woods and trees for any clues.

"I think it [the case] has touched right across Canada," Mr. Grant said.

It was on Sunday, Oct. 12, that Brandon's father permanently revoked his Xbox, angered by changes in his son's behaviour that came about since Brandon started playing online. He'd been skipping school, stealing money and letting his typically exemplary grades fall. Brandon left home the next day, getting on his bike and riding east along an old rail line, now a walking trail. He was last seen that evening by a witness along the trail. He'd left his bike, which had a flat tire, and was walking eastbound.

There's been no trace of him since.

"I fully expected him to be home the next day or evening at worse, with his tail between his legs," Mr. Crisp said. "It's a worst nightmare, obviously."

"I just took away his identity, so I can understand why he got so mad and took off. Before, I couldn't understand why he was taking off for taking his game away."

Speaking near the old rail line yesterday, Barrie police Sergeant Dave Goodbrand said the police search will continue but that investigators have little to go on other than his Xbox, which is being searched for anything that might lead to Brandon's whereabouts.

Items found by the untrained volunteer searchers a few kilometres away have been turned over to police. Nothing has yet proved to be Brandon's.

"We're trying to locate Brandon as quick as we can," Sgt. Goodbrand said. "I'm a father as well, and this story has touched the nation. This nation has adopted Brandon as its own.... It's unique because Brandon has become kind of the face of everybody who doesn't want this to happen to them."

The volunteer searches were organized by staff at the Barrie Advance, a local newspaper where Brandon's mother Angelika Crisp works. Organizer Charmaine Nolan wanted to give concerned area residents a way to pitch in. Though the area searched wasn't where police think Brandon might be - further east along the trail, and south - it can't hurt, Ms. Nolan said.

"The goal was to expand the police search and find Brandon," she said. "Unfortunately nothing was of any relevance."

Police cautioned that they're not involved with the civilian search. Anything found by civilians may be difficult to admit in a court case, should it come to that, because no standard procedure was taken in documenting its discovery, Sgt. Goodbrand said. But the volunteer searches show how much support is behind the Crisp family, he said.

"How can you knock the public, or not want the public to do anything they possibly can to help this investigation?" Sgt. Goodbrand said. "It's not just a police effort, it's a community effort."

One of the last of those search groups to go out yesterday had about 18 people, and focused on Mill Street, some 20 kilometres from Brandon's home. Fighting rain, strong wind and cool temperatures, they were led by Trina Miner, a mother of four who brought her youngest son David, 15, along for the search.

Another searcher was Doug Burns, 52, an information technology consultant who came from Whitby, Ont., more than an hour away.

"The story just kind of moved me," he said. "The community just kind of came together up here. I think it's touched us."