Posted on 06/25/2005 4:18:48 AM PDT by kcvl
June 25, 2005 -- CAMDEN, N.J. — The father of a missing 6-year-old boy dropped to his knees and let out a blood-curdling scream after opening the trunk of a parked car last night to discover the body of his son and two young friends who had been missing since Wednesday.
The bodies of Jesstin "Manny" Pagan, 5; Daniel "Danny" Agosto, 6; and Anibal Cruz, 11 — who were last seen playing in a yard in this hard-luck suburb of Philadelphia — were found by Danny's father, David Agosto, shortly before 7 p.m. in the maroon Toyota Camry.
"Anibal's father told me that there was a plastic bag over his son's head," Anibal's babysitter, Nancy Santana, told The Post last night.
The death car belongs to Anibal's grandmother and had been parked in the driveway of the family's house throughout the three-day search for the boys in neighboring woodlands and the nearby Delaware River.
Hearing Agosto's anguished screams, family and friends frantically ran from a nearby porch where they had held a vigil hoping for a miracle. The grim discovery echoed across the community.
"This is a moment that the families and the city hoped and prayed we wouldn't have to face," said Camden County Prosecutor Vincent Sarubbi.
Last night, law enforcement officials declined to elaborate on their investigation, but said they were searching for Angel Martinez, 28, of Camden, as a "person of interest" in the case.
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Sarubbi and Figueroa said the car had been searched on Thursday with a canine unit.
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"We looked in the car on Thursday," an anguished neighbor, who did not want to be identified, told The Post.
"I can't believe we didn't look in the trunk."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
How horrible!
I'm sorry,but the first question that came to our minds-as we watched on live tv-was: "What led him to THAT particular car?"
I'm sure there are any number of innocent reasons,but it struck us as odd the man would walk up to an abandoned car-already searched by police-and throw open the trunk.
I know when I can't find something, a lot of times I search the same places over again out of desparation.
We thought for sure they had fallen into the Delaware, as every year almost we hear of kids who go into the water in that area and get in trouble, another goes in to help and they all drown. This is really horrible!! For his father to see him like that, I can't imagine the grief!!
Abandoned car? It belonged to one of the kids' grandmothers, and was parked in the family driveway.
If that is the case, why would one of the boys have a plastic bag over his head?
This does not add up.
Whoa! Last night I thought they had locked themselves in the car trunk accidentally being that the car is right near where they live, but I guess that is not the case at all if one of he kids had a bag over his head. Damn man, what the hell is going on here? Every freggin` week it seems kids are getting killed or kidnapped or molested..Here in New York, they just arrested a High School teacher yesterday for having sex with the students! What the hell is this? And then to top it off, one of the most highly publicized molestation cases with that freak Michael Jackson is completely thrown out by the jury because the stupid jury is annoyed at snapping fingers! This ain`t no joke, the message just isn`t getting out there or something for all this to keep happening, if you mess with a kid your life is over buddy, no exceptions. Mandatory death penalty.
How did the canine unit miss the trunk or did they....and who is this "person of interest"
Camden is one rough area.
The Police did all they could to find these boys.
This is on a level of incompetency almost unbelievable.
Oh' never mind this is N.J.
the car was abandoned in the sense that it was probably inoperable thus not in use. I think I heard that it had not been driven in three months. Also, that it was not in the driveway, but in the yard a few feet away. By abandoned, they weren't saying a family member didn't own it, they were saying, not being driven.
It turned out that the search dogs had not found the children in the car when they first looked thru the car but noone ever looked in the trunk. Not even the cops. The father said that car had been there for a while so on a whim he just popped open the trunk. Apparently the police do have a suspect in mind and they mentioned the name on Fox and Friends this morning and IT IS NOT THE FATHER. The father had to be put in an ambulance after finding his kid.
In one heartbreaking moment Friday, the search ended — right where it began — when David Agosto lifted the trunk of a banged-up maroon Toyota Camry sitting in tall grass in the yard where the boys were last seen.
There, he found the bodies of son Daniel Agosto, 6, his 5-year-old friend Jesstin Pagan and 11-year-old Anibal Cruz.
Investigators weren't certain how the boys got there, and the bodies were being examined to determine the cause of their deaths.
"We haven't determined whether this was foul play or whether it was just a tragic accident," said Camden County Prosecutor Vincent Sarubbi. Autopsies were planned, as was an examination of the car, which had dents in the right rear and right front.
A neighbor was watching when David Agosto made the tragic discovery.
"I saw him open the trunk and he just started screaming and he collapsed to the ground," said Carmen Villa, 37, who lives across the street.
With that, part of the mystery was solved, but in other ways it was only deepened.
At this point, Sarubbi conceded, "There are more questions than answers." Not only how the boys got into the trunk, but why didn't searchers — who combed the yard next to Cruz family home — find them sooner?
"It's just a tragedy," said Melissa Martinez, 25, weeping as she watched from Villa's front yard across the street as police began cordoning off the scene. "They've been there all the time. We were just standing here yesterday saying `Where could they be?' and the whole time, they were right there. It's just heartbreaking."
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Agosto's father made the grisly discovery. He broke out in tears, throwing himself against a car, and was later taken away on a stretcher by paramedics, crying and flailing his arms and legs.
According to Police Chief Edwin Figueroa, the vehicle — which neighbors said had sat unused in the yard for three months — had been searched before, but apparently the trunk went unchecked.
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Relatives said Cruz often played with younger children, in part because 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.
I am soo upset about this. They say the media was right there when they found the bodies so everything is on video. What a horror! I have been crying all morning!
Thank you for the name. I forgot it. This is horrible. I just keep thinking about those poor little kids!
Thinking maybe the kids found the bag there and decided to use it, one at a time, to commit suicide in what seemed like a hopeless situation... but that still borders on the bizarre.
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