The three young boys missing from Camden, NJ since June 22 were found dead Friday night in the trunk of a car by one child's father. Police are not ruling out the possibility the deaths were a tragic accident. »The Full Story
Police in Camden, NJ are searching for three boys who went missing on Wednesday, June 22, 2005 while playing outside one of their homes. Investigators have employed helicopters and search dogs to scour the neighborhood. Family members of the three missing boys also joined police and residents Thursday morning.
According to relatives the boys were playing outside about 5 p.m. Wednesday when they vanished.
"I turned my back for two seconds and they were gone," said Jessica Pagan, Jesstin's mother, who brought her son from their home in nearby Mount Ephraim to the city to visit friends.
The boys, who are not related to each other, are: Jesstin Pagan, 5; Daniel Agosto, 6; and Anibal Cruz, 11.
A passer-by at about 8:15 a.m. Thursday told one of the mothers the boys were seen late Wednesday near the Delaware River, about three blocks from the house where they had been playing. Friends and relatives headed there to briefly search a wooded area along the river.
Police Chief Edwin Figueroa said authorities had received several reported sightings of the children in different parts of the city.
The home from which the three boys disappeared is a few doors from a school and area residents say it's a safe neighborhood.
Cruz, 6-year-old Daniel Agosto and 5-year-old Jesstin Pagan had been missing since Wednesday.
"We are saddened by the events that have turned up this evening," Police Chief Edwin J. Figueroa told reporters late Friday. "As you know ... the three children have been found, and they were found in the trunk of a car."
The bodies were found about 7 p.m. in the Cramer Hill neighborhood.
The cause of their deaths is unknown, and police were not ruling out the possibility that it was an accident. Cops say the car -- a maroon Toyota Camry -- was an older model, and had no device in the trunk that would allow someone inside to open it.
Figueroa didn't know when the autopsies would be completed.
"We have a very fresh and active investigation in this case," said Camden County Prosecutor Vincent Sarubbi at the same news conference. "There are many issues that we have to look into."
The families of the children, he said, were "extremely distraught and grieving." They were receiving counseling to help them cope with their losses.
Sarubbi initially said investigators were treating the area where the car was found as a crime scene, but then said it was an "open investigation. We haven't determined whether this was foul play or just a tragic accident."
After the discovery, police cordoned off the area with crime tape, then hung sheets over it to hide the car from view near a wooded area.