Aug 20, 2008 1:12 pm US/Eastern
Police Search Cemetery, Woods For Missing Boy
LYNN (WBZ) ―
Police are taking their search for a missing Lynn boy to the skies.
Investigators told WBZ's Karen Anderson they are using a helicopter to search St. Mary's Cemetery and the surrounding woods in Lynn hoping to find any trace of 5-year-old Giovanni Gonzalez.
There were no tips that prompted them to search that area, police said. They are simply searching as many places as possible.
Giovanni's mother, Daisy Colon, is asking the public for help in her desperate search for her son.
"My plea is for whoever has any information as small as you think, even if you think it's something that's nonsense, please come, because it could be a big thing for us to resolve this as soon as possible, so please come forward," she told reporters Wednesday.
"Whoever has my son, please, I'm begging you to let him go," Colon said before entering the Lynn Police Station.
"I'm going to be in the area, or just bring him to the police station or just tell him how to do it, and he'll be able to get there, because he is a very intelligent boy… Please let him go."
Prosecutors say Giovanni was dropped off at the Lynn home of his father, Ernesto Gonzalez, on Friday. When Colon went to pick him up on Sunday, the father said their son wasn't with him.
Police say Gonzalez, 36, has been uncooperative and charged him with child endangerment. He pleaded not guilty Monday and is being held on $500,000 bail.
Investigators are concerned for the boy's safety because the father has refused to explain how he suffered a cut on his hand.
"I don't understand why, how you could do something like that and not talk and not say anything," Colon said Wednesday, referring to the boy's father.
Police released a new photograph of Giovanni and Ernesto Gonzalez late Tuesday afternoon.
They hope someone will remember seeing them together between Aug. 15 and Sunday evening, Aug. 18.
Court documents obtained by WBZ indicate that Gonzalez has faced assault and battery charges in the past. He has been arrested three times - most recently in 2001, when he allegedly beat his girlfriend and then pulled a knife on police.
According to Colon, Gonzalez wanted nothing to do with his son until recently.
Giovanni is 4-feet-1 and weighs 40 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing jeans, a red shirt and "Spider Man" sandals. He was carrying a "Transformers" backpack.
He has a faded skin pigmentation mark on the lower right side of his chest and a small scar above his eyebrow.
Anyone with information is asked to call Lynn police at 781.595.2000.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
