Bloody Mop Found In Search For Boy

BOSTON -- A bloody mop was found in a Lynn father's apartment during police searches for his missing 5-year-old son, according to the Lynn Daily Item.

Giovanni Gonzalez has been missing since Monday when the boy's father, Ernesto Gonzalez, failed to return the boy to his mother's custody, police said.

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Blood was also found on the bottle of a pine cleaner in the man's Brightwood Terrace apartment, the newspaper reported Friday. Officials are trying to determine where the blood came from, but when Gonzalez was taken into custody, he had a cut on his hand.

Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett told the newspaper Friday night that finding blood "is always a concern," but it's not yet known whose blood is on the mop.

Gonzalez, who works as a butcher, was arrested Monday and ordered held on $500,000 cash bail following his arraignment in Lynn District Court.

Since Monday, officials have searched Lynn neighborhoods, businesses, Dumpsters and a wooded area near Lynn's Flax Pond. Investigators had a false alarm near the pond on Thursday when children thought they found human remains, but it turned out to be nothing.

The boy's mother, Daisy Colon, made another plea Friday for her son's safe return.

"Right now, there is nothing new, nothing going on right now," Colon said. "I am not losing hope, but my feelings are worse now."

Giovanni weighs approximately 40 pounds and is 49 inches tall with black hair and brown eyes. When last seen, he was wearing blue denim jeans, a red T-shirt, a silver braided chain and black Spider-Man sandals. He was carrying a black backpack that had the Transformers robot characters on it. It contained some of his clothes and toys.

He has a faded skin pigmentation mark on the lower right side of his chest and a small scar above his eyebrow.

Anyone with information about the child's disappearance or whereabouts is asked to call 911 or Lynn police at 781-595-2000.