In the waning hours of Oct. 4, a three-legged house cat named Bambi slipped out the front door of her suburban Denver home and disappeared into the night.

What ensued was a frenetic two-week odyssey for the owners, desperate and willing to do anything to find her, and a dark primer on the lengths some people will go to exploit the hopes and pain of those searching for missing pets. 

The cautionary tale of Bambi lost – and found – is a mystery now ended but likely forever unsolved (until cats can talk or the right stranger serendipitously reads these words). 

It began, as such stories so often do, with a mistake.

Lina Boykin and Darrell Barredo had spent that Saturday moving into their new duplex in Wheat Ridge. As midnight closed in, they were finally ready to unbox a few essentials and curl up on the couch with Bambi — a piebald tripod with a powerful purr and cuddle drive.

“I remembered I’d left one last box in the truck, and I went to go get it,” Boykin said. “I was trying to get the box inside … and she slipped out past my feet.”

Boykin and Barredo grabbed treats, toys and flashlights and dashed outside, “frantically, in a panic,” trying to spot and lure Bambi back in. No luck.

They searched the neighborhood, by foot and slow-rolling vehicle, until around 4:30 a.m., managed maybe an hour of fitful sleep, then got back to it. 

By sunrise on Oct. 5, whatever trail the featherweight homebody might have left behind as she shuffled into the void had gone cold.

Cat owners know: A feline who refuses to decamp from the keyboard when you’re on deadline can just as easily vanish chameleon-like — indoors — when it’s time for the vet.

Outside? 

“It was like she’d just … poof,” Boykin said. “She was gone.”

INTO THE UNKNOWN

An estimated 10 million dogs and cats are lost or stolen in the U.S. each year.

According to Pet911, one of a number of online networks dedicated to reconnecting lost pets with owners, of the more than 1.7 million pets reported to its platform as missing in 2024, the recovery rate for dogs was 65%, while just 52% of lost cats made it back home. 

Indoor cats are far more likely than their outdoor peers to hang close to the point of egress, say pet experts, but disorientation and terror — and intervention by well-meaning strangers or deliberate bad actors — are constant wild cards. 

The day after Bambi went missing, Boykin and Barredo both took off work, printed up hundreds of flyers and commenced posting them in high-traffic areas and passing them out door-to-door — working in shifts throughout that day, and the next, and for the next two weeks, to search and spread the word.

“One of the things that was really hard when we were going door to door is we live right by the Greenbelt. So, a lot of people like to remind us there’s a lot of coyotes out here, owls, bobcats … hawks,” Boykin said. “And she’s only 6½ pounds.”

Bambi was microchipped, but not wearing a collar. A severe injury to her right front leg when she was a kitten had led to amputation. By the time Boykin adopted her from Front Range Freedom Rescue when she was 10 months old, however, the wound had completely healed and mobility wasn’t an issue. 

Still, Bambi wasn’t built for life on the lam. 

“She has six teeth and she hops like a bunny,” said Boykin, a 32-year-old flight attendant who adopted Bambi about three years ago. “She’s sweet and dainty and pretty helpless, so yeah, I went to the darkest parts of my mind, like a lot of people do.”

GLIMMERS OF (FALSE) HOPE

Bambi wasn’t the only potential target for predators.

Networking websites and social media were critical in spreading the word of Bambi’s disappearance and widening the search grid, Barredo said, but it came with downsides — and a steep learning curve.

“Social media was great because you really see a lot of people that are supportive and really bond together to find lost animals, which are like family members,” Barredo said. “But with that comes the territory of opportunists unfortunately.”

Lost pet scammers, the couple learned, are heartless, relentless, and appear to follow a similar playbook.

“The first time that happened, it was six in the morning and we were outside searching for her already, and I just remember being so happy, like, ‘Oh my God, somebody found her,’ and we ran inside, and we’re getting ready to leave…”

Then came the follow-up texts, with a request for cash first.

“We weren’t thinking it was a scam right away. We thought, is this person desperate for money? Are they going to hurt our cat if we don’t give it to them? Everything goes through your mind because you’re already so emotional, drained of sleep. … And you really, really want to believe it’s legitimate,” Boykin said.

A closer look at the image that accompanied the text confirmed their mounting suspicions; the picture had been altered, with Bambi’s face from her missing poster photoshopped onto a different cat’s body.

Boykin and Barredo said they called the police on that would-be extortionist. 

PET LOVERS UNITE

For every bad actor, a dozen good ones stepped up to try to help, in person or online. 

“It was amazing the amount of people that I didn’t even know who they were, who were going out of their way to look for my cat,” Boykin said.

Boykin said that’s one reason she and Barredo refused to give up the search, even as the odds of finding Bambi continued to dwindle.

On Friday, Oct. 17, when Barredo got an early morning alert from a Facebook lost and found pets group with news Bambi had been spotted in Colorado Springs — 75 miles away — he kept hope firmly in check.

“I said, ‘Oh boy, here comes another scam,’” Barredo said. 

This time, it was the photo that convinced Bambi’s parents it was safe to believe again. 

“You could tell the photo wasn’t fake,” he said. “I knew this was her.”

On an evening earlier that week, a 13-year-old animal lover named Mathilde noticed her cat, Darcy, had become fixated on something in the yard of their west-side Colorado Springs home.

“He was staring out the front window, his tail was puffed up and he was meowing really loud,” Mathilde said. 

She went out to investigate and discovered a small, white and gray cat, cowering under a parked car.  

“I was really worried, because she looked pretty dirty, and she was missing a leg,” she said. Mathilde and her father left bowls of kibble, as they tried to coax her out long enough to snap a photo to share with online lost pet networks. 

And that’s how, sometimes — when all the right players and the stars align — lost pets make it back home, and two families forge a bond only pet parents can truly understand.

“We got Bambi inside and set her out in the office and just let her walk around until they got here to pick her up. And then we hugged Lina and her boyfriend, and it was really, really nice,” Mathilde said.

How a three-legged, six-tooth, 6½-pound house cat made it from a duplex in Wheat Ridge to a yard in Colorado Springs is anyone’s guess. 

“My dad said that maybe Bambi got on a truck, and then the truck rode to Colorado Springs, and then she jumped off, and then looked around, I guess, maybe, and decided to stay … but it’s still really wild,” Mathilde said.

Boykin and Barredo say they’re now focusing on the things they can know for certain, and (hopefully) control going forward.

Two weeks after Bambi’s return, they’ve finally unpacked and settled in, after putting their lives on hold during her absence. 

“Home finally feels like home now,” Boykin said. 

They still sometimes get calls from would-be scammers who saw the flyers or posts, but not the good news. They “just ignore them,” Boykin said. 

Hopefully Bambi learned her lesson; her owners say they certainly did. 

But just in case, their beloved indoor-only cat now sports a new collar. With AirTag.