Police, DA mum about new Gonzalez search

LYNN – One week before Ernesto Gonzalez’ defense attorney asks a judge to throw out the endangerment charge against his client, prosecutors are scrambling to outline their account of the fate of Gonzalez’ missing son.
A court document filed Thursday confirmed State Police searched an undisclosed location Nov. 28 two days after Gonzalez confessed he killed his son.
Judge Michael Lauranzano immediately clamped a lid on the search document and the reason for the search.
“It was impounded to protect the integrity of an ongoing investigation,” Essex District Attorney spokesman Steve O’Connell said. When asked where the search was conducted O’Connell said he would not discuss it.
Meanwhile, Daisy Colon, mother of missing Giovanni Gonzalez, said Thursday she has no plans to visit the boy’s father in the Essex House of Correction and confront him about their son’s whereabouts.
“I don’t think I need to go down there,” she said.
The day before Thanksgiving, Ernesto Gonzalez claimed he stabbed his son to death Aug. 17, cut his body up in his apartment bath tub, stuffed the parts in six plastic bags and dumped the bags in three downtown Dumpsters.
Police and his attorney, Lawrence McGuire, reacted to the confession with skepticism with McGuire saying evidence gathered so far in the case did not support Gonzalez’ account.
The post-confession search was conducted by State Trooper Brandon Arakelian, the same investigator who pored through Gonzalez’ 2 Brightwood Terrace apartment Aug. 18 searching for signs of blood.
In seeking court permission to do the August search, Arakelian noted that Gonzalez had an unexplained injury on his left hand when questioned Aug. 17 by police.
“When asked how recent the injuries were, Gonzalez would not provide information about the injury,” Arakelian stated in the August search affidavit.
Gonzalez is due back in Lynn District Court Thursday where McGuire will ask a judge to exclude evidence seized in the August search from legal proceedings against Gonzalez.
Maguire is also challenging the endangerment charge to which Gonzalez pleaded innocent.
McGuire said the court magistrate who reviewed the complaint “heard no evidence that the defendant did any act to create a substantial risk of serious bodily injury or sexual abuse to his son.”
Prosecutors indicated at Gonzalez’ Nov. 18 court appearance they would lay out their case against the 36-year-old prior to the December appearance.
They have yet to file a court document making their case.