Experts: Ethan Couch will run out of money or get caught on social media

Bounty hunters and private investigators say the search for Ethan Couch will likely end when the affluenza teen runs out of money, or gets caught using social media.

And if Couch is out of the country, he likely fled north, they surmised.

“If he’s not in Canada, he’s out west somewhere,” said Brian Couch, a bounty hunter at Arlington-based Texas Spartan Group and no relation to the fugitive.

Couch, 18, and his mother, Tonya Couch, remained missing Wednesday, more than a week after a warrant for his arrest was issued by Tarrant County juvenile services.

The teen is serving 10 years’ probation for a drunken 2013 wreck that killed four people and left one boy paralyzed. Tonya Couch, who was added to a missing persons list Sunday, is thought to be with her son.

“Hopefully we’re going to have an update within the next couple days,” Deputy U.S. Marshal Laura Vega said Wednesday. “I know we’re all definitely hoping we have an update before the holidays.”

The U.S. Marshals joined the hunt for Couch last week, offering a $5,000 reward.

Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said his fugitive unit “won’t slow down one bit,” despite Christmas on Friday and New Year’s next week.

“We’ll work as many people as necessary,” Anderson said Wednesday.

Jon Alfaro, the co-owner of Austin-based Texas Bounty Hunters, said that finding Couch and his mom “shouldn’t be difficult at all.”

“This is not a family who knows anything about running,” Alfaro said. “Anything they know about running, they've watched on TV.”

Alfaro said the best way to lay low is to stay in “roach motels.” He doesn’t think Couch and his mother are willing to do that long-term.

He thinks they’ll run out of cash, and then pay with a check or credit card or attempt to have money sent to them. Once that happens, they should be easy to locate.

“Sometime after the first of the year, they’re going to catch him and his mom in a hotel room,” Alfaro said.

On Monday, Krissy Morrison, owner of Fort Worth’s Morrison Investigations, searched a database for the license plate number of the truck authorities said belongs to Tonya Couch. The black Ford pickup, according to the database, hadn’t been seen in the last 30 days, Morrison said.

She thinks Couch will be discovered two ways: He’ll be recognized — especially with his picture plastered across the internet — or he’ll slip up and use social media.

Authorities, for example, can check with Facebook to see if he or his mom have logged on, even if they don’t make a post, Morrison said.

“The kid can’t stay offline — he just can’t,” Morrison said.

Catherine Torrez, owner of Stiletto Spy and Company Investigations, agrees with Morrison’s theory.

“He has never in his life been forced to contain himself,” she said.

Alfaro said authorities should be tracing Couch’s activity back to Dec. 2, when a video of a person appearing to be Couch at a beer pong party was posted to Twitter.

“That’s the moment the family would have entered panic mode,” Alfaro said. “From that period, I’d figure out everybody's finances and everybody's movements. They moved out of their house, so how’d they do it? Who rented a moving truck? Is it in storage? There are so many things there.”

This story was originally published December 23, 2015 at 2:42 PM with the headline "Experts: Ethan Couch will run out of money or get caught on social media."