Family, friends pray for child's return
Mother described as conscientious
LYNN - A week after 5-year-old Giovanni Gonzalez was reported missing in Lynn, authorities yesterday continued to investigate the case, while family and friends in East Boston, where the boy's mother lives, continued to pray for his return.
"I just hope they find that boy," said Richard Boyd, who lives near Daisy Colon, Gonzalez's mother, on Liverpool Street, a row of multicolored townhouses in the Maverick Landing mixed-income development near the East Boston waterfront.
Boyd, a member of the tenants association, said Colon and her family held a vigil at their home Friday night. He said the close-knit neighborhood is praying for Giovanni's safe return to Colon, whom he called a caring and conscientious mother.
"She's a good parent, I'll tell you that," Boyd said. "I'd swear on a stack of bibles to that."
Colon reported her son missing Aug. 17 after she went to pick him up from a scheduled weekend visit with his father, Ernesto L. Gonzalez Jr., but found no answer at Gonzalez's Lynn apartment. When police entered the residence, they found the father but not the boy.
Gonzalez was charged last Monday with one count of child endangerment. He pleaded not guilty and was held on $500,000 cash bail.
On Friday, Essex District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett told the Globe that State Police working with his office had discovered what appeared to be blood-stained objects - including a mop that was apparently stained with blood and cleaned with bleach - in Gonzalez's apartment.
On Saturday, the Lynn Police Department, the State Police, and the FBI set up a roadblock near Gonzalez's Brightwood Terrace apartment and distributed flyers to passing motorists and pedestrians, in an attempt to pinpoint the boy's last known location. They hoped to reach residents as well as people who pass through the Lynn neighborhood as part of their Saturday routine, said Karen Dawley, a spokeswoman for the district attorney.
The roadblock was a visible part of a weeklong investigation that has involved a dozen law enforcement agencies and Lynn city departments. Investigators were "just trying anything to see if they could get a lead or something," Dawley said.
Neither Dawley nor a Lynn police lieutenant would say yesterday whether the effort generated new information.
At police headquarters, a few blocks from Gonzalez's apartment, a "Missing" poster showed Giovanni's smiling face; next to it, a "Desaparecidos" poster showed a picture of both the boy and his father, and urged community cooperation in the search. The posters asked anyone with information to call Lynn police at 781-595-2000 or State Police at 978-745-8908.
Colon did not return a call for comment yesterday. At her East Boston residence in the afternoon, a woman who identified herself as a family member said Colon was not home. 