Andrew Freund, age 5, missing in Illinois while police are focusing on a boy's home

April 21, 2019, 20:55 GMT

By Tim Stelloh

Illinois authorities were looking Sunday for a five-year-old missing boy, Andrew Freund, who appeared to have disappeared from his family's home last week.

After investigators from the city of Crystal Lake, a suburb of Chicago, had won Thursday finding traces of Freund in the city's lake, the local police department had said in a statement that it was not safe to say that they were in trouble. had not been removed and that he had not appeared to be gone. from is home.

No suspects were identified in the disappearance of the child, although the ministry indicated that "the information currently being obtained is that the police are focusing on the residence".

Andrew's parents told the authorities that they last saw him around 9 pm April 17, local time, police said.

When the parents were unable to find the boy at home the next morning, they called the police, the statement said.

The authorities then searched nearly 300 hectares on foot and with drones, while sonars and underwater cameras were used to scan Crystal Lake, said the department.

When a canine team examined the family home, police said, they "understood the smell" of Andrew … stating that he had not gone on foot. "

According to NBC Chicago, the boy's father, Andrew Freund Sr., was seen getting into a car with investigators after obtaining a search warrant for the family's home.

He declined to talk to reporters, although on Sunday he told NBC Chicago that he had "no control over what people think." I just want my son to go home, okay?

The jurist of the boy's mother, Joann Cunningham, told reporters on Friday that she had "cooperated extensively with the police until we had the impression that she could be considered a suspect, "reported the Chicago Sun-Times.

"I do not know if she does it or not and I do not know how serious this consideration is," said the lawyer, George Kililis, to the newspaper. Kililis told NBC News that Cunningham was seven months pregnant and "emotionally and physically exhausted".

NBC Chicago reported that Andrew was in foster care for two years after he was born with opiates in his system. His parents were the subject of an investigation twice last year for allegations of negligence and unfounded abuse.

The State Department of Child and Family Services on Friday arrested the younger brother of the boy, reported the channel. We did not know immediately why.