GERREN JOSEPH ISGRIGG - "Wylie's Angel" - 6 yo - (2010) Wylie (E of Plano) TX

Wylie TX ---- Wylie police
said a child was found dead this morning in the 1900 block of Skyview
Drive, in a park by Lake Lavon.
A worker mowing at East Fork Park found the body in a pond about 9:10
a.m. Police released no details about the child's
identity, not even gender or approximate age.
They said they had not determined how the child died.
Wylie police detective Venece Perepiczka said the worker
discovered the body in a pond on property in the park owned by
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The area is frequented by
fishermen. She said the body was not submerged.
"It's horrible. It's tragic any time you find a child like this,"
Perepiczka said. "We're not ruling out anything."
She said no missing-child reports have been filed that could be
associated with the discovery.
Wylie police are working with the Collin County Child Task Force on the
investigation. Police closed off an entrance
road to the park and were expected to be at the scene through
most of the day. "We're marking anything that
could be anything," Perepiczka said. She said the
last child death in Wylie was in 2008.

Police are
investigating the death of a young boy whose body was found this
morning near Lake Lavon, and are said to be asking about a child
who may have had special needs.
A worker
mowing around a pond just south of East Fork Park near Skyview
Drive and Forrest Ross Road in Wylie found the body about 9:10 a.m.,
according to police. “It’s horrible. It’s
tragic any time you find a child like this,” Wylie police
detective Venece Perepiczka said. “We’re not ruling out anything.”
Police released a few details late this afternoon, saying
the child was white, male, and about 3 years old or older.
They said he has not been identified and autopsy results
are pending. Workers
at several Wylie preschools and day-care centers reported being
visited by police today about a possible missing child. They said
officers were asking about a boy between the ages of 3 and 5, possibly
with special needs, who may have dropped out or been absent in
recent weeks. “They didn’t give us any
information,” said Robyn Johnson, who owns Summit Private School.
Perepiczka said this morning that a worker discovered
the body near the pond on property owned by the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers. The wooded area with a dirt parking
lot leading to the pond’s edge is frequented by anglers.
She said no missing-child reports had been filed that could be
associated with the discovery. Men fishing at
nearby Lake Lavon shook their heads when they heard about the
gruesome discovery in their tight-knit community.
Wylie police are working with the Collin County Child Task Force on the
investigation. Perepiczka said the last
child death in Wylie was in 2008.

Police are
investigating the death of a young boy whose body was found Thursday
morning near Lavon Lake and are said to be asking about a child who may
have had special needs. A worker mowing around a pond just south
of East Fork Park near Skyview Drive and Forrest Ross Road in Wylie
found the body about 9:10 a.m., according to police. "It's
horrible. It's tragic any time you find a child like this," said Wylie
Detective Venece Perepiczka. "We're not ruling out anything."Police
released a few details Thursday afternoon, saying the child was white,
male and about 3 years old or older.They said he had not been
identified and autopsy results were pending.Workers at several
Wylie preschools and day-care centers reported being visited by police
Thursday about a possible missing child. They said officers were asking
about a boy between the ages of 3 and 5, possibly with special needs,
who may have dropped out or been absent in recent weeks. "They
didn't give us any information," said Robyn Johnson, who owns Summit
Private School. Perepiczka said no missing-child reports had been
filed that could be associated with the discovery. She said that
a worker discovered the body near the pond on property owned by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.The body was found near the edge of a
sand and gravel parking lot that leads to the pond. The stagnant water
there is covered with green algae. Trash litters the area.Brothers
Charles and Michael Martinez arrived with their friend, David Daniels,
about noon and found the road to one of their favorite fishing spots
closed by police.On Thursday evening, as they cast their lines
into Lavon Lake in search of crappie and bass, they wondered who would
do such a thing to a child."It's awful. It's terrible," said
Daniels, who lives in North Dallas.Daniels said he used to fish
at the pond years ago, but it hasn't been good fishing for a while
because the water receded.By evening the police had gone, crime
scene tape tossed in a trash bin at the park."Police have got a
job on their hands," said Bill Janecek of Murphy, who regularly fishes
at Lavon Lake."A shame, shame, shame," he said.

Unidentified
Child

COLLIN COUNTY, TX JOHN DOE DOB: Found: Apr 15, 2010 Height: 3'3" (99 cm) Eyes: Brown Race: White Age Now: 6 Sex: Male Weight: 28 lbs (13 kg) Hair: Brown Found: TX United States On Thursday, April 15, 2010 at approximately 9:10A.M. Wylie Police Department responded to a dead body in the 1900 block of Skyview Drive. The Collin County Medical Examiner was able to establish the victim was a white male child approximately 6 years of age, brown hair, brown eyes, approximately 39” tall and approximately 28 pounds. It appears the child had significant medical needs. The child shows signs of being fed through a feeding tube. The Collin County Child Abuse Task Force is asking that any persons with information about the identity of this child, specifically In-Home health care providers, school personnel, day care personnel or community based social services to contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT National Center for Missing & Exploited Children 1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST) or contact NCMEC Cold Case Review Unit at 1-877-446-2632, ext. 6235 or 6342

The young boy
whose body was found Thursday near Lavon Lake was underweight and
had "significant medical needs," police said today.
The boy,
who has not been identified, showed signs of having been fed
through a feeding tube, said Venece Perepiczka, a police detective in
Wylie, where the body was found. He was 6
years old and 39 inches tall, but weighed just 28 pounds. Normal
weight for a boy of that age and height is closer to 60 pounds.
He had brown hair and brown eyes.
Police released an illustration of the boy, in the hope that someone
will recognize him. They are especially hopeful that someone working
in home health care, a school, a day-care center or social
services might know who he is.
Local
authorities are getting assistance in their investigation from the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Those with
information about the boy can call 800-843-5678.
The child's body was found Thursday around 9:10 a.m. by a worker who was
mowing around a pond just south of East Fork Park, near Skyview
Drive and Forrest Ross Road in Wylie.
Police have not said anything public about how they think the child
died; what other evidence they may have been found; or whether foul
play is suspected. They
said today there was no apparent trauma to the child's body.
The results of an autopsy have not yet been released.
Workers at several Wylie preschools and day-care centers
reported being visited Thursday by police and questioned about
whether a young boy, possibly with special needs, had dropped out
or been absent in recent weeks.
Perepiczka said no missing-child reports had been filed with police that
shed light on the boy's identity.

The man whose employees found the body of a little boy in a Wylie
park talked about the gruesome discovery Friday.
Flowers, cards and teddy bears are now at the site where the body of
the unidentified boy was found Thursday.
Gary Valentine said his workers were mowing in the area when they saw
what looked like a human leg under a pile of brush. When Valentine
arrived at the scene, he picked up what he thought was a small
mannequin.

"I said a prayer and I knew I was at a crime scene, but I also knew I
couldn't throw a child in a brush pile," he said. "So, I stepped across
the fence, laid him down, looked back [and] saw a baby blanket [and]
took it and covered up the baby and called 911."

Wylie police created a computer-generated photo and an artist sketch of
the boy they believe is about six years. Authorities said the young boy
was unusually small for his age.

"[He was] approximately 39 inches tall and weighed about 28 pounds,"
said Det. Venece Perepiczka, Wylie Police Department. "It appears as if
the child had significant medical needs. The child showed signs of being
fed through a feeding tube."

Helene Auriemme brought her three-year-old son to site where the boy was
found to place a teddy bear at the memorial for a child they never
knew.

"It was just so sad," she said. "I have little kids, and just to find a
little boy is so sad and we just wanted to bring him a present."
Valentine, a grandfather, said Thursday left him distraught and
angry.

"It's sad that anyone could ever think of doing that to a child," he
said.
Investigators believe his body was at the park about 24 hours before
it was found.
The Collin County medical examiner performed an autopsy, but it did
not reveal the cause of death. There were no obvious signs of trauma.

Someone knows
this little boy with the soulful brown eyes. Someone
knows how he ended up alone, his underweight body dumped near a
stagnant pond.Someone knows answers to the many questions being
asked after the body's discovery Thursday morning by a mowing crew in
Collin County.Autopsy results have not been released, but police
in Wylie say there were no obvious injuries.They now believe the
boy was about 6. Earlier they had estimated he was half that age because
he weighed just 28 pounds. Normal weight for a 6-year-old is closer to
50. He probably had "significant medical needs" and showed signs
of having had a feeding tube, Wylie police Detective Venece Perepiczka
said. To learn his identity, the Wylie Police Department and the
Collin County Child Abuse Task Force have enlisted the help of the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The center's
forensic artists created an image of the boy based on police photos.
It's being distributed across the country."Someone out there
knows who this child is," said Robert Lowery,
executive director of the center's missing children division. The
medical staffers who surgically inserted the feeding tube might
recognize him. Or the doctor or nurse who was monitoring his health.
Given his age, he may have been enrolled in school. Maybe his family had
contact with social services workers.It's too early to say what
might have happened. But those involved in caring for children with
chronic health problems say the few details released suggest that the
boy needed round-the-clock care. And they say his caregiver probably was
under a lot of stress."It's next to impossible to care for
children with substantial medical needs if you don't have support," said
Richard Robison, executive director of the Massachusetts-based
Federation for Children with Special Needs.That support can be
hard to come by, and statistics show that a majority of couples with
special-needs children end up divorcing, according to Patsy Arnold,
founder of a Tarrant County nonprofit called Texas' Special Kids."There's
an 80 percent chance this was a single parent with little to no
support," she said. "A lot of responsibility and stress comes with
raising a child who's that medically fragile.

"'Truth"
The boy's body was found on a quiet gravel turnoff just south of Lavon Lake. Bottles, yard trimmings
and broken tiles pepper the lot. Nearby is a dingy green pond that
sometimes draws anglers.By Friday, passers-by had placed a few
tokens in the boy's memory next to a rusty railing: a bouquet of
daisies, a stuffed bear wearing a cross that said "Truth," and a card
addressed to "Wylie Baby Boy."A few miles away on Ballard Avenue,
Wylie's main drag, traffic streamed by as usual. Signs touted this
weekend's Taste of Wylie and an upcoming charity run.Beth
Hoffard, who owns a sweet-smelling candle shop called The Ole Back
Porch, knew something had gone wrong late Thursday. A friend spotted a
television news truck, and traffic was heavier than usual."It's
just so sad. In fact, it makes you sick, really," said Hoffard, 55. "I
really hope they find out what happened and who did this."Others
echoed her feelings at the Ballard Street Café & Grill, a local
favorite known for its giant slices of chocolate pie.Brandy
Brown, a 29-year-old café worker who has lived in the area her whole
life, said she felt awful, even fearful."You can be in the
smallest of towns," she said, "and the biggest of crimes happen."Such
reactions are understandable, said Dawn Davis, a senior case manager
with the Texas-based Laura Recovery Center for Missing Children. "The
community wants to be the person in this boy's life that cares for him,
that worries for him, because the adult in his life didn't do that,"
she said. "This child was thrown away without regard, and that's
shocking.

"Photo is key"
Davis said investigators have a challenge on their hands. The best thing they
can do is get the boy's photo distributed as widely as possible. She
said that was the key to determining the identity of Baby Grace, a
2-year-old whose body was found in a box in Galveston Bay in October
2007. Sheryl Sawyers, who lives in Ohio, saw a composite sketch
on the Internet and recognized her granddaughter, Riley Ann Sawyers.The
toddler's mother and stepfather were sentenced to life in prison for
her murder.The Wylie case is less than 48 hours old this morning.
But for Pam Cude, an investigator with a Houston nonprofit called Child
Search, that's too long."It's really unnerving to know that
someone has not come forward," she said. "I can't imagine being
desperate enough to lay a child on the side of the road."

Wylie
police pressed a platoon of volunteers into duty Saturday to
canvass neighborhoods, churches and shopping centers so people
throughout the community could see the doleful face of an unidentified
boy whose body was found near a dingy pond south of Lavon Lake last
week.Volunteers from the Wylie Citizens Police Academy Alumni
Association and the Collin County Citizens' Sheriff's Academy Alumni
Association carried with them a sketch of the boy, who authorities
believe was about 6 years old. Earlier, they had thought he was
about 3 because he weighed just 28 pounds.He showed signs of
having used a feeding tube, and Wylie police Detective Venece Perepiczka
said he probably had "significant medical needs." Police said
the boy's body showed no obvious injuries. Results of an autopsy that
could determine how he died were pending. Saturday's community
effort was launched in hopes of finding someone who may have given the
boy medical treatment, seen him at a school or known his family and
might have information that could help identify him. "We've all
heard about this, and it's touched everybody," said Donna Valdepena, the
police liaison for the Wylie Citizens Police Academy. "Everybody wants
to help. I don't think anybody could feel right saying no."The
effort is being matched nationally by the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children. Forensic artists created a sketch of the boy
Friday, and it is being distributed across the country. In Wylie,
people have come to the site where his body was found to drop off
stuffed animals and flowers. "We are a pretty tight-knit
community, and I think somebody is going to come forward with some kind
of information," Valdepena said. "The only way to do that is to get the
information out."

He is listed as “John Doe” on a national missing
children's website, but people in Collin County are calling him "Wylie's Angel."
Mowing crews found the abandoned body of a 6-year-old near Lake Lavon last week. But investigators say
they are no closer to identifying the child, despite more than 100 tips
from around the country.
“As an investigator and a mother, it doesn't make me sleep well to know we haven't identified this
child,” Detective Venece Perepiczka said.
A worker discovered the body of the brown-haired, brown-eyed child five days ago. Investigators said
they believe the body had been there less than 24 hours.
“To sit here and think that some sick person dumped their child off dead, it makes me want to cry,”
said Wylie resident Ashley Whitmire.
The medical examiner has not released a cause of death, but said there were no signs of physical
trauma. It appears the child had severe medical needs and was fed at
some point through a feeding tube.
”Parents that love their children don't do stuff like this,” said Lavon mother Maria Mercado. “You don't just come and
throw them away like trash.”
Mercado brought her 6-year-old daughter and her friends to the Wylie field where the child
was dumped to leave their favorite teddy bears at the site.
“We know he's a little angel,” Mercado said. “That's what I have been teaching the kids, that
he's a little angel and God took him home.”
The First Baptist Church in Wylie has offered to cover the cost of giving the little boy a proper
burial, but it's too soon to say if the offer will be accepted.
Between Schepp’s Dairy and Crimestoppers, there is a $20,000 reward for information that leads to
the child's identity.
A vigil for Wylie's Angel is planned is for Thursday night from 7 to 9 p.m. at East Fork Park on
Lake Lavon, where his body was found.
Dallas resident Malorie Martinez is organizing the event.
She also created a Facebook page hoping to generate new leads in the case. The group already
has around 6,000 members.

A $20,000 reward is now being offered for information leading to the
identification of "Wylie's Angel."
Police say the young boy whose body was found near a Texas lake had
"significant medical needs" and likely was fed by a feeding tube.
The boy, who is believed to be 6, has not been identified. He was
found Thursday near Lavon Lake in Wylie, about 20 miles northeast of
Dallas.
Police say there are no missing children reports matching the boy's
information.. There were no apparent signs of trauma.
But the boy, who was 39 inches tall, weighed just 28 pounds.
A Facebook group has been created to gain awareness and circulate a
digital rendering of the child as much as possible. Click here to join the group and to receive any
updates on the child, or just search Wylie's Angel on Facebook.
The Collin County Child Abuse Task Force is asking that any persons
with information about the identity of this child, specifically in-home
health care providers, school personnel, day care personnel or
community-based social services to contact: 1-800-THE-LOST
(1-800-843-5678).
If you have a child with special needs go to http://www.thearcoftexas.org/
for support and information.

Somebody HAS to know who this child is! This one is really bothering me....

Brown hair, Brown eyes. Makes me think of Zane. I dont understand. You know it has to be the responsible party that placed that child there or someone would have reported him missing. I dont understand.....makes me so sad. I sure hope he was not left there alone to die. I hope that he passed before he was left all alone.

Like Mimi said, the perp is the caregiver. Parent or Relative, Most likely not under CFS custody or they would be missing a child to go with the file. I am surmising from a totally different area. His needs were unique and people around there would have come forward by now. He was "too much to handle" for the caregiver and they could see no other way out. The shame of it is, there are some fosters out there who would give the care this child needed and do it gracefully and gratefully.

kiwimom wrote:Unidentified
Child

COLLIN COUNTY, TX JOHN DOE DOB: Found: Apr 15, 2010 Height: 3'3" (99 cm) Eyes: Brown Race: White Age Now: 6 Sex: Male Weight: 28 lbs (13 kg) Hair: Brown Found: TX United States On Thursday, April 15, 2010 at approximately 9:10A.M. Wylie Police Department responded to a dead body in the 1900 block of Skyview Drive. The Collin County Medical Examiner was able to establish the victim was a white male child approximately 6 years of age, brown hair, brown eyes, approximately 39” tall and approximately 28 pounds. It appears the child had significant medical needs. The child shows signs of being fed through a feeding tube. The Collin County Child Abuse Task Force is asking that any persons with information about the identity of this child, specifically In-Home health care providers, school personnel, day care personnel or community based social services to contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT National Center for Missing & Exploited Children 1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST) or contact NCMEC Cold Case Review Unit at 1-877-446-2632, ext. 6235 or 6342

Bumping the pic forward. Someone must recognize him.

The case of
the unidentified little boy whose body was found a week ago in Wylie
is unusual but hardly unique. There's the
preschool-age boy whose body was found in a laundry bag just
outside Chicago in 2005. From 2002 is the case of a newborn boy found
dead in front of a repair shop in Weld County, Colo. And still
unidentified after more than 45 years is a toddler whose body was
fished out of a reservoir in the mountains near Ashland, Ore., in
1963. The National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children's website lists 142 cases of unidentified
children, some of them found alive as infants but many dead and
still nameless. "You think, 'How in the world could a
child go missing without someone knowing it?' " said Scott Davis
of the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office in Tennessee,
who has volunteered for the past decade on missing children's cases and
hosts an online web series called The Missing. Davis said the best-case scenario is that the dead
child is local and will be recognized by someone in the community.
If he's not local, Davis said, the question becomes where
to expand the search. "Do you look in
surrounding cities, surrounding states?" Davis asked.
He started The Missing program on YouTube last year to
feature unsolved cases in hopes of reaching people who might know
something and hadn't heard about them through traditional news
media. "One person is all it takes," Davis said.
But, he concedes, these cases are tough to solve.
"The person that put this John Doe beside
the road does not want to come forward," Davis said.
On the case

Wylie police say the boy found
seven days ago by a crew mowing around a pond near Lavon Lake
had "significant medical needs." He also showed signs of having
had a feeding tube. The brown-haired, brown-eyed boy was small
for his age, measuring 39 inches tall and weighing 28 pounds. He's
believed to be about 6 years old. Wylie police
Detective Venece Perepiczka said Wednesday that investigators
have received more than 400 tips so far.
"Everything we're getting in is helpful," she said. "Eventually we'll
get the one to help find out who this boy is."
Wylie investigators are working with the Collin County Child Abuse
Task Force and the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children. The center's forensic artists created an image of the
boy, based on police photos, that is circulating around the
country in hopes that someone will recognize him. America's
Most Wanted is featuring the boy's image on its
website. And a Facebook
page called Wylie's Angel, started by a Dallas woman, has grown
to more than 27,000 members. Photo comparisons

Tips that come in to the National Center's
24-hour hotline are given to staffers who compare the details
provided with the case. If enough information matches, callers
are asked to provide a recent photo to do what's called a
forensic overlay. Staffers look for points of comparison on the
face in the submitted photo and that of the unidentified child,
said Jerry Nance, supervisor of the center's forensic services unit.
But the photo comparisons aren't always easy.
"It can be tricky," Nance said, because children younger
than 10 have growth spurts that can change their facial features.
If the photos are similar enough, Nance said,
the information is sent to local investigators for further
review. A positive ID will be made only through DNA or dental
records. Nance said finding the Wylie boy's body
so soon after his death gives investigators their best chance at
identifying him. Authorities say he'd been dead less than 24
hours. The state's Department of Public Safety
Missing Persons Clearinghouse serves as the central repository
for information on missing and unidentified people in Texas. Its
database lists 891 unidentified remains statewide, but program
supervisor Heidi Fischer said the actual number is likely far
greater because local agencies don't always report their cases to
the state. The majority of the remains on record
in Texas are adults. Children's cases are relatively rare,
Fischer said. But all of them are listed on the center's
searchable website in hopes of eventually identifying them.
"A case is never closed unless identification is made,"
Fischer said. Nationwide, an estimated 15,000 to
40,000 sets of remains are unidentified, according to the federal Bureau
of Justice Statistics. Of the 4,400 cases of
unidentified remains reported by medical examiners across the country in
an average year, about 1,000 remain unsolved after a year, the bureau
reported.
Years of waiting

The cases that drag on for years are some of the most difficult.
On April 28, 2001, the naked and headless body of a black
girl was found in a wooded area in Kansas City, Mo. Three days
later investigators found her head wrapped in a trash bag.
"I was convinced in the beginning that it would be a matter of
hours before someone would call in and report her missing," said Sgt.
David Bernard
with the Kansas City Police Department's homicide unit. "I was
wrong." Bernard said investigators enlisted experts
to create two graphic drawings and two facial reconstructions
over the years. With each new image of the child came more tips.
But still, the little girl, dubbed Precious Doe, remained
unidentified. Investigators were considering
what's called an isotope analysis of teeth and bones to determine
which part of the country she was from. But an ad published in a
weekly newspaper generated a tip from Oklahoma that broke open
the case. Three-year-old Erica Michelle Marie Green was
identified nearly four years after her body was found. Her mother and
stepfather were arrested in her death. Both are now in prison.
Bernard said, "It was a long, hard four years to finally
get that call." Illinois case

DuPage County Sheriff's Commander Mark Edwalds
is still waiting for answers in an Illinois case that has
stretched nearly five years. A man walking his
dog on Oct. 8, 2005, found a blue canvas laundry bag containing
the remains of a little boy. The body was too decomposed to
determine how he died. Investigators believe the
dark-haired boy is between 3 and 5 years old. They filed his DNA
with a national database and had forensic artists do sketches and
clay renderings to circulate to the public. Hundreds of tips
poured in. They traced the boy's dark blue button-down
shirt and pants to Wal-Mart,
which sold that Faded Glory brand exclusively. Edwalds said
investigators found three instances in the country where the shirt and
pants were purchased together. The two credit card purchases were ruled
out. The one in the Chicago area, though, was made with cash. Detectives saturated the area around that Wal-Mart with the boy's
images in hopes someone would recognize him.
The case remains unsolved, though tips still come in occasionally.
Edwalds remains hopeful. "Somewhere along
the line, somebody's going to get a conscience."