Giovanni Gonzalez-Colon was 5 when he was last seen in Lynn, Massachusetts, on August 15, 2008. His mother, Daisy Colon, dropped him off for a weekend visit with his father, Ernesto Gonzalez. Giovanni was carrying a Transformers backpack and was last seen wearing a red t-shirt, blue jeans, and Spiderman sandals.

Over the weekend Daisy could not reach Ernesto and found him claiming he had not seen Giovanni when she arrived to pick him up. Witnesses at a local behavioral clinic reported seeing Giovanni with his father on August 16, and neighbors said they heard a child’s voice coming from Ernesto’s apartment that day. Officers searching the apartment recovered Giovanni’s toys but not his backpack or clothing. Ernesto was arrested on child endangerment charges that were later replaced with parental kidnapping and misleading police.

In November 2008 Ernesto confessed to killing and dismembering his son and disposing of remains in trash bins around Lynn, but investigators reported finding no physical evidence in the apartment to support that confession and expressed doubts about its veracity. Giovanni’s whereabouts remain unknown and the case is open; his mother believes he may have been taken to Puerto Rico, where both parents have family. Does anyone with memories of Lynn in August 2008 or information about either parent’s travel know anything that could help locate Giovanni?