View full sizeBeth Nakamura/The OregonianKaine Horman, the father of Kyron Horman, said today during an interview with The Oregonian that "the pieces are going to fall into place at some point" in the effort to find his missing son.
said Thursday that his marriage to the boy's stepmom began to grow rocky after she gave birth to their little girl 19 months ago.
"I thought the marriage was doing pretty well,"
said during a one-on-one interview with The Oregonian, "until we had our daughter, Kiara."
fractured within six months after she gave birth in November 2008, the result of postpartum depression.
Terri Horman was put on medication for the depression, and her doctor told Kaine to keep an eye on her to make sure she was OK, he said. But she wasn't OK.
"She's had a lot of emotional outbursts," he said. "I think it's still with her. I don't know if it's postpartum or something else."
The 36-year-old software engineer said he believes what he wrote in a June 28 restraining order against his estranged wife: She tried to hire someone to kill him.
During a car ride Thursday a few miles from the elementary school where his 7-year-old son vanished on June 4, Horman said he agrees with detectives who have told him that the investigation into Kyron's disappearance will be a marathon rather than a sprint.
He hopes a few key pieces of information -- from tips or leads or something detectives track down -- will eventually break the case.
"I think we're certain that the pieces are going to fall into place at some point," he said.
Kaine and Kiara Horman moved out of their rural Multnomah County home on June 26. A couple of days later, Kaine filed for divorce and obtained a restraining order that forbids his wife from coming near him or their daughter.
A Multnomah County judge unsealed the restraining order Thursday, and Kaine's attorney filed a motion to amend it so that the court will force Terri Horman to vacate the home.
"I believe respondent is involved in the disappearance of my son Kyron," Kaine Horman wrote. "I also recently learned that respondent attempted to hire someone to murder me. The police have provided me with probable cause to believe the above two statements to be true."
Horman wrote that the attempted murder-for-hire plot occurred at the end of 2009.
Horman also has asked the court to hold an expedited hearing that would force his wife out of the house he bought on Northwest Sheltered Nook Road in January 2007, three months before he and Terri Horman got married in Hawaii.
In Thursday's interview, Horman said one reason he wants to move back into his house is to return his daughter to her normal surroundings. He and his daughter have been living in an undisclosed location.
"Part two is, we find Kyron, what are they gonna do, ship him off to our undisclosed location?" Horman said. "I mean, how homey is that gonna be for him when we find him?"
Circuit Judge Keith Meisenheimer set a hearing for July 22 in which Terri Horman will be ordered to show good reason why the court shouldn't make her move out of the house.
Terri Horman's lawyer, Stephen Houze, said this week that neither he nor Terri would comment on the murder-for-hire allegations, restraining order, divorce proceedings or ongoing investigation.
The restraining order unsealed Thursday requires Terri Horman to stay more than 500 feet from her husband or daughter, and not have any parenting time. She's also not to go to the Skyline School, Kaine's Intel office or his gym, The Edge in Beaverton. She's also restricted from entering her daughter's current or future day-care provider's location or school.
The judge also ordered Terri Horman not to possess any firearms.
Kyron Horman disappeared after spending time at a science fair at Skyline School in rural northwest Multnomah County. His stepmom was the last known person to have seen him. She told authorities that she brought Kyron to school that morning with his science fair exhibit and watched him walk toward his classroom about 8:45 a.m. before she left the school.
Although the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office has not identified a suspect or a person of interest in the boy's disappearance, investigators have clearly focused on Terri Horman in recent weeks.
On June 18, they began circulating fliers with her photo and a picture of the white truck she drove to and from the school on the day Kyron vanished.
About that time, investigators tracked down a landscaper who told authorities that Terri Horman had tried to pay him to kill her husband. Then on June 26, detectives sent the landscaper back to the Horman home to get taped corroboration of the alleged murder-for-hire plot.
The landscaper, fitted with a body wire, told Terri Horman he would tell police about her plan if she didn't pay him $10,000. But she cut off the conversation and called 9-1-1 to report "threats," records show.
The revelation of the alleged plot to kill Kaine Horman has helped widen the increasing split between Kyron's parents and Terri Horman.
held a news conference at a Beaverton hotel.
During the news conference, Young said she has long suspected that Terri Horman has been involved in Kyron's disappearance.
Asked about her body language at the family's first public appearance June 11 -- at the time, she appeared stiff and closed her eyes tight when Terri Horman put her arm around Young's shoulder -- Young said she thought then that Horman was involved.
"Mothers have instincts," Young said, "and unfortunately I had feelings about this when I got the phone call."
She and Kaine Horman also said that Terri Horman has failed two polygraph tests and went on to make it clear they are upset with her.
"I'm so angry I don't even have words," Young told reporters. "I just really want her to do the right thing and I can't say it enough that Kyron is still out there and he needs to be home. It's extremely frustrating that she's not cooperating."
When asked how Terri Horman wasn't cooperating with investigators, Young said she wasn't "taking an active role in finding Kyron and telling the truth.
"I've known her a long time," Young said. "I know she's lying."
Kaine Horman added that he was upset about Terri occupying the family home, keeping him and his daughter out of it.
"Displacing a child for the comfort of an adult. I think we all have our opinions on how appropriate that is," he said.
Kyron's parents did not comment on the specifics of the investigation, but noticeably paused when asked if they thought someone else might be involved.
"We would like to speculate, but we really can't," Young said.
Investigators in the missing-child case are at a crossroads, focusing on Terri Horman while urging the public to keep an eye out for Kyron and pass them any tips that might help locate the boy.
But where does that leave Kaine Horman?
"It still puts me looking for my boy," he said. "It's our kids first, and everything else comes after. So Kyron, he's missing, he's in danger -- he's No. 1 priority. And after that, Kiara is No. 2 priority. And based on what I filed (in) the restraining order, we feel that she's possibly in danger. So we've got two children that are in bad places."
Horman, standing on a wooded road in Adidas running shoes, was stoic when considering his troubles.
"It's gotta happen to somebody," he said.
As a software engineer at Intel, Horman has been trained to break things down into pieces, compartmentalize and prioritize them.
"It's one piece at a time," he said. "If we address every piece emotionally, we'd go insane right now."
Horman, a former high school sprinter, said he holds things together by running a couple of miles a day, playing with his daughter and seeing a counselor once a week to talk about his situation.
He said he and Kyron's mother and stepfather have asked detectives not to give them any false hope as they investigate his disappearance.
"It was kind of something we all talked about together," he said. "Obviously, we're hopeful that this will come to a conclusion sometime soon."
Asked whether he has made any plans if detectives come to him with bad news, Horman pursed his lips and shook his head.