OXFORD — A local man who was the subject of a search after his crashed car was found Saturday was summoned to court for leaving the scene of an accident, Lt. Michael Ward of the Oxford Police Department said Thursday.

Gene Stanley Burns Jr., 24, was declared missing when his 2004 Saturn Ion was found crashed into a tree off Robinson Hill Road on Saturday. Ward said the front end was smashed and the car was locked. A witness had seen Burns walking down the road toward Mechanic Falls, he said.

Burns didn’t return phone calls or return to work. Fearing he’d been injured and had wandered into the woods, Oxford police were assisted by the Maine Warden Service and Maine State Police using a search plane and a K-9 unit in a six-hour search around the site of the crash.

At around 9 p.m. Tuesday night, Burns returned a text from Oxford police on his cellphone, saying he was in Abington, Mass., and didn’t know how he got there.

Ward said he spoke with Burns on Thursday. The man had said he remembered sliding off the road Saturday while rounding a corner in the snow and slamming into a tree, but he didn’t remember what happened afterward or how he ended up 20 miles southeast of Boston.

“That’s what he’s saying,” Ward said. He called the incident “suspicious,” and said the investigation was wrapping up.

treaves@sunjournal.com