Search Expands for 3 Missing Camden, NJ Kids

[HOPE]

June 23, 2005 7:18 p.m. EST

Mount Ephraim, NJ (AHN) - Three children remain missing in a suburb of Camden, New Jersey with an intense search on for the kids who vanished Wednesday night.

11-year-old Anibel Cruz, 6-year-old Daniel Agosto, and 5-year-old Jesstin Pagan went missing around 5pm Wednesday night outside of a home they were playing in front of. The families of the missing children searched frantically for the children for four hours and then called police.

Cruz's aunt Jennifer Calo says, "We've done everything we can. The only thing we can do now is hope and pray we'll turn around and they'll be walking down the sidewalk and saying, 'We're here.'"

Jesstin's mother, Jessica Pagan says, "I turned my back for two seconds and they were gone."

Police launched a massive search in nearby wooded areas where bloodhounds tracked the scent of one of the boy's clothing. Helicopters and boats were uses along the Delaware River all day Thursday in hopes of a clue. Officials are also going door to door as well as checking abandoned houses and local train tracks.

Cruz's parents are especially concerned for the health of Anibel due to a serious mental condition the child suffers from that requires medication.

Police are not ruling out an abduction or foul play saying "There's no tangible evidence we've received to say, 'Yeah, there's foul play here, but it's possible."

Anyone spotting the three children should call Camden Police immediately at 856-757-7400.

[HOPE]

Three Missing N.J. Boys Found Dead in Car

June 24, 2005 8:49 PM EDT

CAMDEN, N.J. - The father of a missing 6-year-old boy found his son's body and those of his two young friends in the trunk of a car Friday, two days after the children disappeared from a nearby yard where they were playing.

A neighbor, Carmen Cilla, said she saw David Agosto open the trunk of the car and collapse to his knees screaming. It was not immediately clear how the three boys got into the vehicle or whether foul play was involved.

Yolanda DeNeely Aguilard, an aide to Mayor Gwendolyn Faison, confirmed the bodies had been found. She had no immediate information on how they died.

The boys - Jesstin "Manny" Pagan, 5; Daniel Agosto, 6; and Anibal "Juni" Cruz, 11 - had vanished from the yard next to Anibal's home on Wednesday evening. The car where they were found was parked in a driveway next to the yard. It was not immediately clear if the car had been searched previously.

The boys had been the subject of a massive search since their disappearance. About 150 police, firefighters and other officials searched Friday using boats, helicopters, all-terrain vehicles and tracking dogs.

Neighbors in this desperately poor, crime-ridden city of about 80,000 people across the Delaware River from Philadelphia also passed out fliers to motorists with the boys' photos and descriptions.

At dusk, hundreds of people milled about in the neighborhood, many in tears, as news helicopters hovered overhead.

"If it was one of my kids, I'd be devastated, like into a million pieces," said neighbor Maria Rolon, 28.

Anibal and Daniel both lived in Camden's largely Puerto Rican Cramer Hill neighborhood. Jesstin lived several miles away in Mount Ephraim. He and his mother had been visiting Anibal's home at the time of their disappearance.

Relatives said Anibal often played with younger children - in part because they were more like him than kids his age. He suffered from neurological problems and had just finished the fifth grade at a school for special needs students.

"He may be 11 years old, but his mind is more like a 4- or 3-year-old," said his grandmother, Carmen Cruz.

Daniel disappeared a day before his last day of kindergarten. He had never gone off the block alone before, said his mother, Iraida Roman. She described him as a regular kid who liked to "ride bikes, play in the dirt - simple kid stuff."

Jesstin also attended a special needs school, said a family friend, Cornell Worlds Jr. The boy idolized the Los Angeles Lakers and star player Kobe Bryant, Worlds said.

He was "a good-spirited type of kid," Worlds said.