Sonoma Co. Sheriff's Office Continues Search For Wanted Man

An extensive search that underway for a 49-year-old man believed to be possibly armed and unstable continues, Sonoma County sheriff’s officials said.

Authorities are looking for Ned Kohler, who is suspected of burglarizing a home and threatening his family, according to sheriff’s officials. Around 8 a.m. Sunday, deputies responded to a report of a burglary on Franz Valley School Road in Knights Valley, Sonoma County sheriff’s Sgt. Cecile Focha said.

A woman called the sheriff’s dispatch center and told deputies a man broke a window to her home and came inside, Focha said.

The man was “rambling incoherent threats,” which scared the woman and Focha said she ran to a neighbor’s house to call for help. The woman told deputies her bedridden husband was still at home and that she had left food cooking on the stove, Focha said.

The husband was found Saturday afternoon in the home without injury and Focha said he was reunited with his wife. Investigators suspect Kohler, a Knights Valley resident, committed the burglary.

Deputies received multiple calls from Kohler’s family members on Saturday who told deputies he had made threats against them, according to Focha.

Family members reported he was walking at a property off of state Highway 128, about a mile from the reported burglary, without clothes or shoes and was talking nonsensically, Focha said.

Family members told police Kohler had threatened them multiple times and is frequently armed and possesses multiple firearms, the spokeswoman said.

Deputies set up a perimeter along Franz Valley School Road on a vast, rugged property and tried to communicate with Kohler, she said. Hostage negotiators, a SWAT team, firefighters and paramedics were called to the scene, along with the Sonoma County sheriff’s helicopter, Henry 1. Sheriff’s officials said Kohler remained at large as of around 10 p.m.

Anyone with information about his whereabouts is asked to call sheriff’s officials at (707) 565-2185.

--Bay City News