I found this article where they interviewed the paternal grandmother of Giovanni Gonzalez, who’s been missing from Lynn, Massachusetts (same place as Jesus De La Cruz who was about the same age) for two and a half years. He was five then, and would be almost eight now if he is still alive, which I think is unlikely. Giovanni’s father, Ernesto, has been charged with his kidnapping his son and is awaiting trial. He actually confessed to killing Giovanni. The police could find no evidence to support his statement. Nonetheless, many people believe Ernesto did murder his son, though perhaps not like he said in the confession.
Ernesto’s mother, Lydia Gonzalez, lives in Puerto Rico. She sounds like a sensible, decent enough woman who had the misfortune to raise a monster of a son. Which happens sometimes. Some people turn out to be evil and it’s not necessarily the parents’ fault — look at some families were one sibling is a wonderful, compassionate individual and another sibling is a vicious criminal type whom you wouldn’t trust to babysit your house plant.
Getting back to Lydia, she says she loves Ernesto but she’s been estranged from him and hasn’t even spoken to him for the past several years because of his criminal behavior and drug involvement. They wanted her to come to Massachusetts to see if she could convince Ernesto to fess up to what really happened to Giovanni. She was going to go, then she changed her mind. I highly doubt Lydia would have been able to help, anyway.
Ernesto has four children with various women. The reporter located one of his old girlfriends in Puerto Rico and spoke to her. Their son is 18, also lives in Puerto Rico and attends college. He was extremely upset to hear about Giovanni’s disappearance and is now in counseling. The entire Puerto Rican branch of the Gonzalez family came under police scrutiny, which naturally upset them. For awhile the police thought Giovanni might be in hiding with Ernesto’s family on the island, though I think they’ve ruled that theory out. Ernesto has harmed, and continues to harm, quite a lot of people.
“If my son is guilty, then he should pay,” Lydia says. “If he’s innocent, then he should speak.”
Well said.
The Charley Project Blog 