02-08-2011, 08:34 AM
someone killed this kid.
NEW BRAUNFELS — The search for a missing toddler entered its fourth excruciating day Monday, with police summoning state prison bloodhounds to assist in locating the boy, now believed dead near his family's home on the south side of the city.
Eighteen-month-old Joshua Davis Jr. disappeared Friday night. Police suspect he slipped out of his family's mobile home while he was unattended.
Hope for a happy ending, police say, faded after two successive nights of 20-degree weather.
Authorities have ruled out foul play, says Lt. Michael Penshorn of the New Braunfels police, but investigators interviewed sex offenders nearby and have continued to question family and friends.
Police also have had to quash rumors and red herrings.
The latest was a frantic broadcast report that searchers ripped up the mobile home floor in a search for remains. In fact, according to police, searchers merely opened the trailer's apron and crawled under the home.
A Facebook post Sunday indicated the boy had been sighted on Hunter Road, on the other side of town. It proved to be false, but was discounted only after police sent officers and a dog team out to investigate it.
Another distraction centered on a toy that was found resting on a mailbox. Initial speculation was that it was too high for the child to have placed it there, indicating an adult's involvement in his disappearance. Penshorn, however, explained the ball was an old, forgotten toy found in high weeds and placed on the mailbox by a searcher Saturday or Sunday.
Police have retraced their steps from Friday night, when the search centered on the neighborhood, and have widened the larger search to include more of the empty fields, ponds and ditches nearby. More than 100 police, fire and rescue officers, including Texas Rangers, worked on the case Monday, and the FBI is expected to help today.
The boy's parents spent much of Monday handing out fliers.
“We're just waiting for news,” Joshua Davis, the boy's father, said Monday. The boy's mother, he added, “is trying to hold it together. We're doing the best we can.”
mysanantonio.com
the parents:
NEW BRAUNFELS — The search for a missing toddler entered its fourth excruciating day Monday, with police summoning state prison bloodhounds to assist in locating the boy, now believed dead near his family's home on the south side of the city.
Eighteen-month-old Joshua Davis Jr. disappeared Friday night. Police suspect he slipped out of his family's mobile home while he was unattended.
Hope for a happy ending, police say, faded after two successive nights of 20-degree weather.
Authorities have ruled out foul play, says Lt. Michael Penshorn of the New Braunfels police, but investigators interviewed sex offenders nearby and have continued to question family and friends.
Police also have had to quash rumors and red herrings.
The latest was a frantic broadcast report that searchers ripped up the mobile home floor in a search for remains. In fact, according to police, searchers merely opened the trailer's apron and crawled under the home.
A Facebook post Sunday indicated the boy had been sighted on Hunter Road, on the other side of town. It proved to be false, but was discounted only after police sent officers and a dog team out to investigate it.
Another distraction centered on a toy that was found resting on a mailbox. Initial speculation was that it was too high for the child to have placed it there, indicating an adult's involvement in his disappearance. Penshorn, however, explained the ball was an old, forgotten toy found in high weeds and placed on the mailbox by a searcher Saturday or Sunday.
Police have retraced their steps from Friday night, when the search centered on the neighborhood, and have widened the larger search to include more of the empty fields, ponds and ditches nearby. More than 100 police, fire and rescue officers, including Texas Rangers, worked on the case Monday, and the FBI is expected to help today.
The boy's parents spent much of Monday handing out fliers.
“We're just waiting for news,” Joshua Davis, the boy's father, said Monday. The boy's mother, he added, “is trying to hold it together. We're doing the best we can.”
mysanantonio.com
the parents: