Camden Father Blames DYFS For Child's Death
Council Wants Answers

POSTED: 6:00 am EDT June 27, 2005
UPDATED: 10:44 pm EDT June 27, 2005

CAMDEN, N.J. -- As authorities began investigating why police failed to search a car trunk where three missing boys were found dead, the father of one of the children said Sunday he could not understand how they died so close to home.


Anibal Cruz, 38, said the family assumed that police looked in the trunk of the car that was parked just steps from where the boys were last seen playing.

"That was the first place to look," Cruz said. "You can look through the windows and check inside. That is simple. Maybe they should have looked in the trunk."

Officials said the boys suffocated after climbing into the trunk on their own. Their bodies were found by David Agosto, whose 6-year-old son Daniel had gone missing along with 5-year-old Jesstin Pagan and 11-year-old Anibal Cruz.

Authorities have said if any law enforcement officials broke department rules in the search they would be disciplined. Police and prosecutors were expected to issue a report within 30 days on the handling of the search.

In addition to the formal review of the search, City Council President Angel Fuentes said the council also will hold a hearing on the matter at its regular meeting Thursday.

"I know my colleagues and I have questions," said Fuentes, whose district includes the area where the boys died.

Cruz, who has lived in Philadelphia for the past year since separating from his wife Alba, also blamed the state Division of Youth and Family Services for his son's death. He said he had called the agency several times in the past year to tell them his son, who was mentally disabled, was wandering away from home into the neighborhood.

However, he said DYFS did nothing to solve the problem.

"If he had been put in a safe place, maybe this would have never happened," Cruz said.

Andy Williams, a spokesman for the state Human Services Department, declined to comment Sunday on whether Cruz made phone calls to the agency, citing confidentiality issue. Williams said the department investigates after every call of potential abuse, neglect or child endangerment.

Dozens of officials had searched for two days for the boys, using helicopters, a bloodhound and divers who searched the nearby Delaware River. On Sunday, Police Lt. Mike Lynch said officials felt many of the same frustrations as Cruz, but said it was premature to speculate.

Article: Camden Stunned After Missing Children Found Dead

"Whatever the circumstances are, I can tell you that the efforts of those searchers and those police officers and everyone involved were 100 percent committed," he said.

One of the boys had played previously in the car, which was owned by Anibal's maternal grandmother. It had been sitting for about three weeks in a shaded, weedy corner of the Cruz family's yard.

The hydraulic plunger that keeps the trunk from closing was not working, so the lid was able to swing close and lock as soon as the boys stopped propping it up, prosecutor Vincent Sarubbi said.

Federal law requires cars made beginning in 2002 to have release latches inside the trunk, but the Toyota in which the boys were found appears to have been an older model.

Sarubbi said some periods of hard rain on Wednesday evening may have muffled any noises from the well-insulated trunk, which was parked far enough from the house to make it difficult to hear any voices coming from it.

A joint funeral service for the boys was tentatively scheduled for Wednesday in Camden. Both Agosto and Pagan will be buried Thursday in Camden, while Cruz will be buried in Puerto Rico at a later date.

Meanwhile, community members continued to deal with their grief. A steady stream of visitors stood under the hot sun outside the Cruz home Sunday, placing stuffed animals, balloons, candles and notes in front of a chain-link fence in the yard where the boys were last seen playing together.

For some, the grief over their loss was turning into frustration.

As he paid his respects area resident Luis Rodriguez, 55, asked why the police never thought to look in the car's trunk.

"Why wouldn't they think to look in a trunk? (Crime victims) get stuck in trunks all the time," he said.

At one point in the early afternoon, the scene at the Cruz home turned chaotic as news crews set up cameras on the sidewalk for an expected news conference that never occurred.

It was later learned that several media outlets had received a release from an unidentified man claiming to represent members of the Cruz and Pagan families, as well as their lawyers. However, family members said they did not know the man or why he made the claims.

Copyright 2005 by NBC10.com The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

This tragedy is close to home.

On first read, it's easy to condemn the parents because they have suggested that "the police" should have looked in the trunk of the vehicle.

However, I'd submit that they deserve some slack in this time of grief. They are looking to place the blame somewhere because the pain is too difficult to accept. It's human nature.

In reality, it's just an unfortunate situation that resulted in tragedy.

Let it go.

Show of hands: How many of you keep broken fridges in your yard? Cars with broken trunk lids? Anybody?

Bot

Way to go.

Judge them for leaving a car with a broken trunk lid.

Your kindness overwhelmes me.

The broken lid didn't cause their deaths. Accidents happen.

Because of that realization, careful, thoughtful adults with reasonable parenting skills look for possible problems in the lives of all children, especially their own, and seek to minimize those threats by any means necessary. That's why they call us, "parents" and not "bystanders."

Got an abandoned car with a broken lid in your yard AND small kids? Take a hint, Kojak.

Bot

There are many people out there are not the brightest of the bunch and lack the most basic parenting skills.

I certainly don't need to educate you on the number of idiots out there. You might be aware that it's one of my favorite topics.

"The average citizen is a moron."

But, a little sensitivity goes a long way. You wouldn't make such a case to the parents in person, would you?

So, you feel better saying it behind their backs?

BTW, I'm just as guilty in criticizing stupidity and have far less tolerance than you do. But, when a parent has suffered the deaths of three children, it's not the time to hurl softballs.

I sure wouldn't say that to a grieving parent, no. They're already awash in guilt.

Be that as it may, If you have a car with a broken trunk lid in your yard, I hope you carry tons of liability insurance. because to the human race, you are a liability.

Stupidity is no excuse for smothering children.

Bot

Such people don't typically have any insurance. They live barely on the financial edge and don't have the knowledge or the intelligence to get ahead in this world.

I'm sure you have seen your share of such people. They are sure to suffer more than their share of hardship. Some of it is due to their own making. Some of it is not.

I don't feel it's proper for you and Med to criticize them.

Well, tough.

People who f-up and let other people die through stupidity and neglect are contemptible.

Folks who are so incompetent that they keep crap like that in their yard have my condolences for their loss and my scorn for contributing to it.

B

Keep it up.

I hope it doesn't come back to haunt you, someday.

What, are you superstitious? Is there some divine karmic balance in the universe that i should fear?

BS.

Bot

There is financial poverty,the lack of resources necessary for basic survival,yet there is a more common,isidious form of poverty,the want of competence to ameliorate life's burdens,poverty of the spirit that weighs so heavily it negates all possibility of lessening the opressive burden many face.

These 2 walk hand in hand and the one generally facilitates the onset of the other.

It is easy and facile for us to give self-congratulatory explanations and judgements from our secure vantage point.

Owning rental properties,some of which are section 8 housing {social services}has given me a direct and not too complacent view of those at the bottom of the ladder.

__________________

No, probably not. At one time I had thought that what goes around comes around, but, I've also come to believe the same thing.

BS

I've lived in 2nd-hand rental trailers and caught chickens for a living. I have helped folks in far greater poverty than anything you'll find in the USA. Maybe dumb as a stump, but they know where their kids are and who they are playing with. Even dumb ones. Unless they are negligent parents. Negligence is not a function of intelligence, but of self-indulgence.

There is no excuse for negligence. That's why they call it, "negligence."

Yes.........dumb as a stump..........but smart enough to know that the trunk of a car might be a bad place for children to play.

Sorry, dude, it's got nothing to do with negligence. If they knew the trunk was a hazard and did nothing about it, then it's negligence.

You have zero evidence that they were smart enough to realize the danger of the trunk.

Again, judging from on high.

You can do better.