It’s been three years since this Idaho boy went missing. Here’s what he’d look like now.

FRUITLAND (Idaho Statesman) — As the three-year anniversary of Fruitland boy Michael Vaughan’s disappearance arrives, forensic artists have helped the Fruitland Police Department release an age-progression picture showing what he would look like today.

Michael went missing on July 27, 2021, and although police have said his remains likely were once buried in a backyard not far from where he lived, they continue efforts to find him.

“We’re doing everything we can to get this case solved. Michael has been gone for three years, and the case remains very active,” Fruitland Police Chief JD Huff said in a news release Friday. “Our goal remains to follow up on everything and use every investigative tool available because we haven’t recovered Michael, and we don’t want to leave any stone unturned.”

The latest move to help find Michael was coordinated with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Forensic artists at NCMEC created an image to depict the boy’s appearance at the age of 7. He would have turned 8 on June 24.

“Today, we are celebrating the day Michael brought joy and love into this world, so our family will have his favorite chocolate cake, and his baby sister is going to open his presents for him,” Michael’s mother, Brandi Neal, told NCMEC last month.

As of a 2022 post on NCMEC’s website, the organization has produced over 7,500 age progression photos of long-term missing children. Approximately 1,800 of the children who were given an age-progression photo were found as of 2022.

“We know that our images are an important tool in the search for missing children, and we hope this will help lead investigators to find answers about what happened to Michael,” Angeline Hartmann, director of communications at NCMEC, said in a news release.

The forensic team at NCMEC digitally ages a child every two years until the age of 18, according to the NCMEC post, before extending the process to every five years.

Case managers work with families to collect photos of parents and siblings of the missing child, and merge features of these photos with intricate knowledge of how children’s faces change over time, according to the missing children center.