Ethan Couch, the wealthy Tarrant County teen who received probation for killing four people while driving drunk in 2013, is missing — and authorities fear he may have skipped the country. 
 
 Two years ago, the public anger that welled up when Couch’s attorneys blamed his crimes on “affluenza” boiled into outrage when a Fort Worth judge didn’t sentence him to jail. 
 
 Now Couch, who is 18 but is still a juvenile under the Texas legal system, is wanted on suspicion of missing a check-in with his probation officer. Such a failure would be a probation violation. 
 
 Couch’s defense team said it has had no contact with him and declined to comment further. 
 
 Authorities say they don’t plan to go easy on Couch. 
 
 “Any mess-ups from now on, he’s going to be over with us,” said Terry Grisham, spokesman for the Tarrant County sheriff’s office. “He’s going to see what the big-boy jail is like.” 
 
 But Couch is nowhere to be found, and authorities worry he may have fled the U.S. 
 
 “With the wealth and the wherewithal that his family has, it’s going to be a tough assignment for us to find him,” Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said Wednesday. 
 
 Earlier this month, a video claiming to show Couch playing beer pong — another potential probation violation — reignited public outrage surrounding the case. 
 
 On Tuesday, Couch’s attorneys announced that the teen’s probation officer hasn’t been able to reach him and his mother for several days. Tarrant County’s probation department has ordered authorities to take Couch into custody if they see him. 
 
 The district attorney’s office said it is still investigating the beer pong video and declined to comment Wednesday on allegations that he violated probation. It did say, however, that violations could bring up to 10 years in jail. 
 
 “It’s one of those times when you hate to say ‘I told you so,’ but I told you so,” the sheriff said. “I knew he was going to end up in more trouble.” 
 
 Justice for the crash victims’ families, Anderson said, now hinges on Couch’s arrest. 
 
 “He ruined a lot of lives,” Anderson said. “We’re determined to make sure he’s fully accountable within the boundaries that are set in the case. He needs to be brought back.” 
 
 The county’s fugitive hunters are searching for the teen and talking to people who may be in contact with him. Colleen Sheehey-Church, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, also asked people to be on the lookout for Couch. 
 
 “Affluenza aside, Ethan Couch appears to show blatant disregard for the law, and he must be held accountable,” Sheehey-Church said in a prepared statement issued Wednesday. “The families impacted will never have their loved ones back. Ethan Couch must have consequences for his actions.” 
 
 The district attorney’s office has requested the case be moved from juvenile court to adult court after Couch’s 19th birthday in April. State District Judge Timothy Menikos is expected to rule on that request next year. 
 
 Experts say Couch already would be in jail or prison had he been tried in the adult system. Juvenile court judges are more likely to consider rehabilitation for young criminals than judges who oversee adults. 
 
 Authorities said Couch was partying the night of June 15, 2013, when he struck and killed a 24-year-old woman whose SUV had broken down and three people who stopped to help her. 
 
 During Couch’s trial, his defense attorneys argued that he suffered from affluenza. In other words, the defense said, his family’s wealth and a dysfunctional relationship with his parents rendered him unable to comprehend the consequences of his actions. 
 
 In December 2013, Judge Jean Boyd sentenced Couch to 10 years’ probation and ordered him to attend a rehabilitation facility. 
 
 “The judge in this case took a big risk by giving him probation in the face of significant media attention and the harm that the victims and their families suffered,” said Nicole Knox, a Dallas criminal defense attorney. 
 
 Boyd has since retired, leaving the case in Menikos’ hands. 
 
 Couch’s punishment could change if Menikos finds he violated his probation, which prohibits him from driving, drinking or using drugs. 
 
 Knox said prosecutors will need to prove in court that Couch violated the terms of his probation before asking for a tougher sentence. 
 
 And if they win, Knox said, it would be a slap in the face of the judicial system. 
 
 But she also said: “It’s a disappointment when a court does take a chance on someone and gives them a chance to be rehabilitated — and it doesn’t work,” she said. 
 
 Anyone with information on Couch’s whereabouts is urged to call the Tarrant County sheriff’s office at 817-884-1213. 
 
 Twitter: @naheedrajwani 

 Authorities are still looking for Ethan Couch, the Tarrant County teenager who killed four people in a 2013 drunken-driving crash. 
 
 Randy Turner, chief probation officer for Tarrant County Juvenile Services, confirmed that his department issued a directive Tuesday to area law enforcement agencies to apprehend Couch. 
 
 The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department started searching for Couch on Wednesday morning after being notified of the directive, “which is like a juvenile version of an arrest warrant,” Sheriff Dee Anderson said. 
 
 Anderson said the fugitive unit is looking for him with the help of other agencies and the national criminal database. 
 
 Wherever Couch is found, the local agency will detain him and turn him over to Tarrant County, which will place him in a juvenile facility, Anderson said. 
 
 “My personal belief is he has probably run some distance,” Anderson told the Star-Telegram late Wednesday. “I fear he has had a pretty good head start. Reports are his mother is gone also, and I don’t think they are going to be found locally.” 
 
 My personal belief is he has probably run some distance. Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson 
 
 WFAA News reported that Couch was sought after he missed an appointment with his probation officer. The teen was sentenced to 10 years of probation after a 2013 wreck on Burleson-Retta Road in southern Tarrant County. 
 
 “After he missed his appointment the probation officials went out to his house where he was supposed to be staying with his mom, and that started the whole process,” Anderson said. 
 
 Sam Jordan, a spokeswoman for the Tarrant County district attorney’s office, said prosecutors are still investigating a video of Couch allegedly at a party where alcohol appeared to be present. 
 
 The 6-second clip posted on Twitter last month shows a person resembling Couch clapping as someone else dives onto a table of red cups and cans of Miller Lite. 
 
 “My personal belief is when that video came out, I feel he felt like he violated his probation, and I believe that was the trigger that caused him to up and run,” Anderson said. 
 
 My personal belief is when that video came out, I feel he felt like he violated his probation, and I believe that was the trigger that caused him to up and run. Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson 
 
 Anderson said that no warrant has been issued for Tonya Couch but that she will be charged if it is found that she helped her son avoid detention. 
 
 A motion to transfer Couch’s case to an adult court was filed by the district attorney’s office last month. A court date is still pending. If the motion is not granted, Couch’s probation will expire in April when he turns 19. 
 
 “I’ve got 140 deputies out looking for fugitives every day, and if we had a ‘top 10 wanted’ list, he’d be No. 1,” Anderson said. 
 
 Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of #EthanCouch please call 817-884-1213 pic.twitter.com/cGfe9DdW02 — Tarrant County SO (@tarrantcountyso) December 16, 2015 
 
 Contacted Wednesday, Shaunna Jennings, whose husband, Brian Jennings, was killed in the 2013 wreck, said, “It’s out of our hands.” 
 
 Mothers Against Drunk Driving issued a statement late Wednesday afternoon asking everyone to be on the lookout for Couch. 
 
 “Four people were hit and killed, and no one was held responsible,” MADD President Colleen Sheehey-Church wrote. “This is egregious. ‘Affluenza’ aside, Ethan Couch appears to show blatant disregard for the law, and he must be held accountable.”
– "Affluenza" teen Ethan Couch is still a fugitive and authorities fear his wealthy family may have taken mollycoddling to a whole new level and helped him flee the country. When probation officers couldn't reach the 18-year-old after an alleged probation violation, they discovered that the Texas home he shared with his mother had been cleaned out apart from a pinball machine, reports Reuters. Officials say the US Marshals Service and the FBI have now joined the search for the teenager and his mother, Tonya Couch, but sources tell Reuters that Couch's father has told investigators that the pair's passports are gone, sparking fears that they may have fled the country with a considerable head start on authorities. "With the wealth and the wherewithal that his family has, it's going to be a tough assignment for us to find him," Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson tells the Dallas Morning News. "This is a family that knows how to game the system and has done so from the start," the sheriff tells Reuters, adding that the teen "got a big jump on us because he was gone before any of us knew that he was missing." No warrant for Tonya Couch has been issued, though she will be charged if it's determined that she helped her son evade authorities, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports. Couch's "affluenza" defense helped him dodge a prison sentence after he killed four people while driving drunk in 2013, but he'll have no such luck if he's captured. "He's going to see what the big-boy jail is like," a sheriff's office spokesman tells the Morning News. (The psychologist who used "affluenza" in court regrets it.)