Mother urges missing son to call 911 for help

By John R. Ellement, Globe staff

LYNN -- The mother of a missing five-year-old boy, last seen with his father in Lynn, today urged her son to call 911 so he could be found and returned to their East Boston home.

“Giovanni I miss you a lot, honey, ‘’ Daisy Colon said this afternoon after leaving Lynn police headquarters. She urged her son to call 911. “Don’t be afraid to ask for help, okay honey? ‘’

Giovanni Gonzalez was last seen at about 4 p.m. Friday at his father's home at 2 Brightwood Terrace in Lynn. He is about 4-feet, 1-inch tall with black hair and brown eyes and was wearing blue denim jeans, a red T-shirt, a silver braided chain, and black Spider Man sandals. He has a slight birthmark on his left inner ankle and a faded pigmentation mark on the lower right side of his chest.

Colon, 33, of East Boston had brought him to his father's home for a scheduled weekend visit. When she went to pick up the boy Sunday night, the father, Ernesto L. Gonzalez Jr., did not answer the door. Colon called police, and they found the father, but the boy was not there.

Police this afternoon released a photograph showing Gonzalez holding his smiling son, and investigators hope that the image of the two together may spark someone's memory and generate new investigative leads.

Jack Dawley, first assistant district attorney for Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett, said today that police are back scouring the immediate area around Gonzalez’ home in search of the boy, reinterviewing neighbors, and searching for people who may have spotted the pair sometime this weekend.

He also said they are checking restaurants and stores near the father’s home in hopes an employee spotted the boy or they were recorded on a surveillance camera.

“Last night we came up short,’’ he said. “We are revisiting everything we did yesterday, over and over and over again.’’

Gonzalez, 36, has been charged with child endangerment. He is being held on $500,000 cash bail following his arraignment on Monday in Lynn District Court.

Dawley said Gonzalez has ties to Puerto Rico. Investigators reached out to his relatives on the island and now consider it a “remote chance’’ that Gonzalez was somehow able to send the boy in that direction, Dawley said.

“Right now, our focus is more on the immediate area to the father in Lynn than anywhere else,’’ Dawley said.

Dawley said Gonzalez now has an attorney and investigators are not able to speak directly to him. He also said that Gonzalez denied even having the child with him this weekend.

Dawley said eyewitnesses saw a young boy who may have been Giovanni in Gonzalez’ apartment Saturday night around 8 p.m. He said the child’s mother was at the apartment at 4 p.m. on Sunday, expecting to be reunited with her son at the conclusion of the visit.

“So, those are the key times for us, after 8 p.m. on Saturday and before 4 p.m. on Sunday,’’ Dawley said.

According to records on file at Suffolk Probate and Family Court, Gonzalez formally sought visitation with his son on June 6, an issue that was scheduled to be heard on Sept. 15. He wrote a one sentence explanation for his visitation request.

“Because I am the father of the child,’’ Gonzalez wrote.

The couple represented themselves in the child support and custody case that began in 2006. Gonzalez had been ordered to pay $125 a week in child support and maintain health coverage for his son, who was born in May 2003. Gonzalez was never cited by the court for failing to make his child support payments.

On Monday, Lynn and State Police issued an endangered child advisory, which is similar to an Amber Alert but does not involve a vehicle.

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