Posted on 03/15/2007 3:16:39 PM PDT by mystery-ak
BRUNSWICK, Ga. — The body of missing 6-year-old Christopher Barrios was found around 4 p.m. near the Brunswick, Ga., airport, police confirmed Thursday
Christopher had been missing since last Thursday. His body was found about two miles from his home.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
"We believe they did it," Doering said, though he would not elaborate on any motive to the killing.
A reporter from local FOX affiliate WAGA who was on the scene said officials have put up crime scene tape in an area around the Brunswick, Ga., airport, less than 1 mile away from the child's home.
A Department of Natural Resources officer found the body lying on the ground covered with something, although officials would not say what the covering was, Doering saidDoering was the one who told Christopher's father the tragic news.
"That's the hardest time I've had to hold my composure," he said.
Police earlier found several shovels around the homes of a convicted sex offender and his associates during their search for the missing boy, according to local reports.
One shovel was found late Monday night in the home of the prime suspect in the case, George Edenfield, and three more were found Wednesday night around the home of another person of interest now in police custody, Doering told local FOX affiliate WAWS.
Edenfield, a 32-year-old convicted sex offender, his father David, mother Peggy, and family friend Donald Dale, had been providing people with false information and leads for several days as to Christopher's whereabouts.
"My hopes jumped back up that he's alive and that we're gonna find our baby alive and he's gonna come back home," Christopher's grandmother, Sue Rodriguez, told FOX News just hours before the news of her grandson's death surfaced.
"They haven't found no baby's body and as along as that's not so, I'm gonna continue to hope and pray that he's alive and that he's coming home."
George Edenfield's parents and Dale were arrested this week and charged with obstructing an officer, providing false information and concealing the death of another — meaning they gave leads to police about where Christopher's body was that never panned out. Charges will now be updated to homicide, police said.
Doering said Thursday that even though many leads the Edenfields and Dale gave police didn't turn up a body, the clues still were somewhat helpful.
"Everywhere we searched, we found nothing we were supposed to find," Doering said. But "we were confident that to some degree, they were telling us the truth ... that kept us looking, kept us focused."
Asked whether she believed the Edenfields and Dale knew where Christopher was, Rodriguez earlier said she thinks the four are "playing like they're crazy" in leading frustrated police around to different spots only to come up empty in their search.
"I've begun thinking they are a little bit off but I think there's a lot playin' and this ain't no game," she said.
Investigators on Thursday searched another pond for the boy. Searchers had been combing the same general 5-square-mile area for a week in their search for Christopher.
"We hope we find him," Glynn County Police Capt. Jim Nazzrie told FOXNews.com Thursday before the news of Christopher's death. "I'm very hopeful we're going to find him alive ... you always have that hope that someone will be found alive."
Police searched a thicket of dense pines Wednesday night where Edenfield's father, David, and Dale told investigators they had buried the boy's body there. They also searched a pond near the mobile home park in which both the Barrios and Edenfields live.
But hours of searching with high-tech gear failed to turn up any sign of the child. The search was suspended for the night around 10 p.m.
Police said Monday night was the last night the people in custody referred to Barrios as a child and not a body, WAWS reported. Investigators also began searching areas outside of Glynn County later this week. They said they also wanted to talk to other persons of interest.
George Edenfield, a convicted sex offender who was taken into custody on unrelated charges of violating his parole and, as of Thursday afternoon, still had no charges against him in Christopher's disappearance, is the main suspect in the investigation.
In one interview, police said he told them he knew where the boy was located, but in another, he said he didn’t know anything about his disappearance.
David and Peggy Edenfield and Dale were charged with "concealing the death of another person," a charge based on false statements to police, Nazzrie said.
"All that is under state law, if you told me you buried a body and you took me out there and you couldn’t produce the body ... then we charge you with that because you say you have knowledge of it," Nazzrie said. "It probably won't hold up in court but it's still a charge."
The Edenfields and Dale were charged with obstruction of justice and making false statements to investigators about where Christopher may have been, and whether he was alive.
"The father and his friend basically confessed to burying little Christopher," Nazzrie told FOX News on Wednesday. "They took us to the area, several areas … for some reason they want to lie about it, they can’t remember where they buried the body or if they did bury the boy," he said.
"[George Edenfield] actually said that he had hurt the boy and his momma and then had moved the boy," Nazzrie said. However, police have "no reason to believe [Christopher] is dead," he added.
The obstruction charges carry a bond of only $235.50 per person, while the giving false statements charges carry a bond of $1,104 per person. No bond was set for the "concealing the death of another person" charges, or for George Edenfield's parole violation.
Christopher was last seen last Thursday night walking on a road not far from the homes of his father and grandmother, who live in a mobile home park about a half-mile from Interstate 95 just outside the port city of Brunswick on the Georgia coast.
On Monday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation issued a Levi's Call, the state's equivalent of an Amber Alert.
Yet another sex offender kills again, will the world ever learn there is only one way to deal with these animals?
Terrible.
I had to read that sentence three times to figure out what it means.
This guy lived across the street from Christopher.....
Just horrible. I was hoping that somehow they would find him alive. Almost every day there is some story about pedophiles going after innocent children, some of them trusted teachers. Yet judges in several states have given pedophiles a pass. This makes me furious and sad.
It broke my heart when they announced this a little while ago on Fox....to think he lived right across the street from Christopher and probably watch him every day.....I will never let my grandson out of my sight!
They all look like a bunch of twisted and sick f---s.
Because of freaks like these my kids have never been able to play outside without constant supervision. For the past 15 years I have had to be constantly paranoid and as watchful as a mother bear. These monsters hurt EVERYONE in one way or another.
And if I hear one more time that a a previously convicted sex offender has struck again I'm going to lose my mind. WHY oh WHY are they ever let out????
My two boys are grown men now...but even growing up when they were outside, I was out there with them.....it's not safe anymore...
The only justice is when they go to general population in prison.
Our system now allows the criminals too apply the real sentence.
These people need to be shot.
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PASS THIS ALONG..
THIS IS NO JOKE... THE SITE DOES WORK
http://www.familywatchdog.us
When you visit this site you can enter your address and a map will pop up with your house as the small icon of a house and red, blue, green dots surrounding your entire neighborhood. When you click on these! dots a picture of a person will appear with an address and the description of the crime he or she had committed.
If he did this he should have that 5 year old mind permanently removed.
Thanks for posting that...I was about to search for it myself.
If he did this he should have that 5 year old mind permanently removed.
.....with a sledge hammer
I think they should just drop the whole lot of them in a vat of boiling oil. This is just beyond the comprehension of most people.
Gads. Bottom of the gene pool.
I hope they can get them all. The man who was convicted (and just sentenced to death!) of killing that little girl near Orlando, Florida was helped to get rid of the evidence and then protected by his sister and other family members. But believe it or not, Florida has a law where family members cannot be prosecuted for helping another family member. Incredible. I hope Georgia has no such law.
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