Grief - and unease - follow Haddon Twp. tot's unsolved death
Three days after a 3-year-old boy was found dead in the woods in Haddon Township, a sense of unease has spread among residents as authorities remain tight-lipped about how the boy may have died.
Three days after a 3-year-old boy was found dead in the woods in Haddon Township, a sense of unease has spread among residents as authorities remain tight-lipped about how the boy may have died.
"People are anxious, they want closure," said Robert Edward Petralia, 46, who searched the streets for Brendan Link Creato after his father, D.J., reported him missing about 6 a.m. Tuesday. "Like what happened to this child?"
Brendan's body was found about 9 a.m., three hours after his father's 911 call, in woods near Cooper Street and South Park Drive, about half a mile from his father's apartment. The woods are near the banks of the Cooper River.
An autopsy Tuesday was unable to determine the cause of death, said Andy McNeil, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. McNeil has since declined to say what further tests might be needed.
The lack of answers has stirred speculation that someone is to blame for Brendan's death. Even more disconcerting - to the residents who searched cars, garages, and Halloween pumpkins after receiving an automated police call about Brendan's disappearance - there have been no arrests.
"After a few days, there are still no real answers yet regarding how he got down to the river and really how he passed away," said John Foley, the township's director of public safety, who is not involved in the investigation. "So the public is understandably anxious. Do they have someone out there who is the perpetrator?"
Foley, a father of three young girls who lives in the same neighborhood as the Creatos, called the incident "very, very, very disconcerting."
"It may be a while before we learn something," he said. But investigators with Haddon Township police and the county prosecutor's office will "get to the bottom of this."
In a 911 call made Tuesday morning, D.J. Creato said he had woken up to find that his son was gone.
"I just woke up and he wasn't in my apartment. I don't know if he wandered out or what happened. I don't know where he is," Creato told a dispatcher, according to a recording of the call. "The door was locked, I guess he unlocked it and left."
On Thursday, just before 11 a.m., Creato answered the door at his father's Haddon Township house, about a block away from his apartment at Cooper Street and Virginia Avenue. Creato, wearing glasses and a black jacket, declined to discuss the case and said he was not talking to reporters at this time.
Two doors down, neighbor Juliette Daniels, 51, who has known the Creato family for 17 years, expressed confidence that no one in the family was involved in Brendan's disappearance.
"It's normal for everybody to be investigating" and to start with the inner circle, she said, adding: "I have no worries."
Daniels held back tears as she described Brendan, who wanted to be the Hulk for Halloween.
"The baby was loved," she said. "I loved him. We all loved him."
Creato and Brendan's mother, Samantha Denoto, do not live together, friends of the family have said.
Denoto's family released a statement late Tuesday saying they were "heartbroken" but "do not have any answers about what occurred."
Authorities asked anyone with information about the boy's death to contact Camden County Prosecutor's Office Detective Michael Rhoads at 856-225-8561 or Haddon Township Police Detective Don Quinn at 856-833-6208.
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