SALEM – The case against Ernesto Gonzalez, charged with parental kidnapping and willfully misleading police in the disappearance of his 5-year-old son in 2008, was continued until February so the defense can have additional time to review reports and then set a trial assignment date.The case had been scheduled in Salem Superior Court for a possible lobby conference with the judge to try to work out a plea, but that did not happen. Instead the case was set down for a trial assignment date.Defense lawyer Christopher S. Skinner told Judge Timothy Q. Feeley that he still has not received a few reports from prosecutors and needs them before he can decide how to proceed, and asked that the case be scheduled for Feb. 2 for a trial assignment, which the judge agreed to continue to.Assistant District Attorney Jean M. Curran informed Feeley that she turned over the completion of all laboratory work from CellMark Diagnostics, the private forensic laboratory in Dallas, Texas, that examined most of the DNA specimens and additional reports which Skinner had requested.Gonzalez, a 38-year-old meat plant worker, is charged with the disappearance of his son, Giovanni, who was reported missing on Aug. 17, 2008 by his mother, Daisy Colon, after he never returned home from a pre-arranged visit with his father at his apartment at 2 Brightwood Terrace in Lynn.Gonzalez, in a jailhouse confession in November of 2008, claimed he stabbed his son with a kitchen knife because he was misbehaving. Then he put his son’s body in the bathtub and dismembered the body, placing the body parts into six grocery bags, which he said he disposed of in three different Dumpsters within the city. Authorities never found any traces of the boy’s remains after combing the city.Police during a search of Gonzalez’s apartment found traces of the boy’s blood on a knife, on a piece of wood flooring, a cleaning liquid cap and a bathroom threshold.The case has been lingering primarily due to scientific testing of the boy’s blood. Investigators took more than 30 samples.Gonzalez was present Wednesday at the courthouse in lock-up, but declined to be present in the courtroom when his case was called.He faces up to five years in state prison on the parental kidnapping charge and up to 10 years in state prison for lying to law enforcement officers. There is no minimum mandatory punishment on either of the two indictments.