http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/...h_for_lynn_boy/Investigators intensify search for Lynn boy
Roadblocks set up in neighborhoodBy Erin Ailworth
Globe Staff / August 24, 2008
Federal investigators and state and local police set up roadblocks yesterday in the Lynn neighborhood where a missing 5-year-old was last reported seen about a week ago.
The goal yesterday was "to see if people going about their routines, who have the same [weekend] routine, have seen anything," said Karen Dawley, a spokeswoman for Essex District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett.
Shortly before 5 p.m., Dawley said she had heard of no new developments.
Authorities believe Giovanni Gonzalez went missing after being dropped off at his father's Lynn apartment on Aug. 15. When the boy's mother, Daisy Colon, went to pick him up two days later, his father, Ernesto Gonzalez, said Giovanni had never been there.
Colon has repeatedly asked the public for help in finding her son.
Colon spent yesterday handing out fliers and talking to people about her missing son. She encouraged anyone with information to come forward.
"If they know anything, any little detail. Any little detail they know, don't be afraid to come out and say it," she said speaking from her neighborhood, where she had stopped to update friends.
Colon has stayed positive about her son's chances. "Keep praying, because I still have faith. I still have faith he is coming home," she said. "Thank you for praying, those that I don't know and those that I know. Thank you for being there for me."
The search for Giovanni took a dark turn Friday, when police found a mop that appeared to have been stained with blood and cleaned with bleach inside Ernesto Gonzalez's apartment, authorities said.
Investigators also seized several knives and the cap of a household cleanser that appeared to be blood-stained.
During a search of the apartment earlier in the week, police had seized a laptop computer.
Gonzalez, 36, denies that he ever saw his son, has not cooperated with investigators, and refuses to discuss a cut on his hand.
He is being held on $500,000 bail and has pleaded not guilty to child endangerment charges.
Yesterday, as authorities continued circulating fliers about the missing boy, neighbors at the Brightwood Terrace apartments where Gonzalez lived said they rarely saw the man or his son.
"I never saw the kid until the police showed me a picture," said Kim Whitford, who lives in an apartment on the floor below Gonzalez's.
"As far as the dad goes, he really didn't want to talk to anybody, so he pretty much just kept to himself," Whitford said.
Neighbor Nick Arroyo, who has lived in the building about a month, said he recalls seeing Gonzalez with his son only a few times.
"He usually played around with his son," Arroyo recalled. "Both times I saw him, his son had a little toy car he played around with."
