A boy is gone, mother's hope stays

5-year-old has been missing 3 weeks

Giovanni Gonzalez with his father, Ernesto Gonzalez Jr. (Massachusetts State Police)

Some days, it is only a mother's intuition that keeps Daisy Colon's spirit going strong.

"In my heart, I know he's alive," the East Boston woman said in a phone interview yesterday.

Colon's 5-year-old son, Giovanni Gonzalez, has been missing since Aug. 16, a day after she dropped him off in Lynn with his father, Ernesto Gonzalez Jr., she said.

Gonzalez has told Lynn police and State Police assigned to Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett's office that Colon never dropped off the child. But neighbors said they saw Gonzalez and a boy now believed to be Giovanni playing at the father's Brightwood Terrace apartment on the afternoon of Aug. 16.

Gonzalez is being held on $500,000 cash bail and is refusing to talk to investigators, who are determined more than ever to reunite the child with his mother.

"We are not giving up," Blodgett said this week. "We are not sparing any expense or effort to find him. We are not even at the point of thinking of giving up."

Yesterday, Blodgett and Lynn police jointly said they are mapping out a new search strategy with State Police but declined to be more specific, citing the investigation.

Police have already made multiple sweeps of the downtown neighborhood where the elder Gonzalez lived, as well as Flax Pond, cemeteries, parks, and nearby stores. Gonzalez, authorities said, did not own a car, was considered a loner, and was not known to have extensive financial resources.

Authorities also said yesterday that Clear Channel will provide a billboard next week in Lynn that will display pictures of Giovanni and his father.

Blodgett said investigators have pursued hopeful, but ultimately dead-end leads, such as a report that the boy was seen in Lawrence and another tip that he was driven to Florida.

Gonzalez was a meatcutter at a Lynn company, where his employers have been very cooperative with investigators, Blodgett said. Speaking only in vague terms, he said "we've taken some samples from different things, and we are having that tested."

Blodgett said investigators are now working to eliminate possibilities but are extremely reluctant to consider the possibility that the child has lost his life.

"We are keeping our energy up by operating under the belief that he is alive, and he is out there, and we are going to keep looking for him," Blodgett said.

Giovanni's disappearance has drawn the attention of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Ernie Allen, president of the center, said experience has shown that most children are reunited with their loved ones, even if it sometimes takes weeks, months, or years.

The center is circulating Giovanni's photograph around the country and in Puerto Rico, where his father has relatives, he said.

"It's a very frustrating case," Allen said. "Our hope is that somebody will come forward with information. We are concerned about Giovanni's safety."

According to court records, the elder Gonzalez has had occasional violent outbursts, but Colon said she never saw him act out of line toward their son. And, even now, she still cannot understand why the father of her son sits in jail, silent.

"I'm breaking my head," Colon said. "I think every day, every night, 'Why? Why would he do something like that?' There is no answer."

Allen said that studies show that 80 percent of custodial kidnappings spring from anger between the adults. The child, he said, is used merely as a means to lash out.

He said custodial kidnappings most often end without the child suffering physical injury. Emotional damage is severe, however, he said.

"There really is hope," he said. "Just because it's been [since Aug. 16] doesn't mean that this is gloom and doom. . . . Somebody knows where Giovanni is. We believe he is alive."

Police asked anyone with information to contact Lynn police or State Police assigned to Blodgett's office.

John Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com.