A photo of Jesus De la Cruz at age 6, the year he disappeared twenty years ago this month. Photo Courtesy of Lynn Police
By Gayla Cawley
LYNN — It’s been nearly 20 years, but the mystery of a 6-year-old boy vanishing without a trace on a sunny Saturday afternoon remains unsolved.
Wednesday will mark two decades since Jesus De La Cruz went missing. He was last seen at 6 p.m. on Sept. 28, 1996, walking down the sidewalk toward Lynn Common, lured away by a man promising him a new bicycle. The investigation is still open and is classified as a non-family abduction, according to Lynn Police Chief Kevin Coppinger.
“We have no idea,” Coppinger said. “We don’t know where he is. There were just a lot of tips, a lot of rumors. Six-year-olds just don’t disappear like that. There were a lot of allegations that we looked into involving suspicious activity. Nothing ever produced anything that we could go forward on. Detectives were working on this 24/7.”
Lynn Police didn’t receive the report that he was missing until past midnight the next day. His mother, Magdalena Rodriguez, called police to report the boy missing after searching her Park Street neighborhood for several hours.
Coppinger, a lieutenant at the time of the disappearance, said Officers Richard Courtney and Steven Withrow responded to 22 Park St. on a report of a missing boy. He said police spoke with Rodriguez, who told them that at 2 p.m. on Sept. 28, her son went out to Bennett Circle to play with friends. She went to visit her friend’s house on Western Avenue, and returned to her home at 7 p.m to find Jesus was missing.
Following the initial report, an extensive investigation began, led by Joseph Rowe, a captain with the Lynn Police Department at the time. The department was assisted by State Police and the FBI. Rowe retired in 2008, handing the case over to Lynn Police Captain Mark O’Toole, who replaced him as head of the Criminal Investigation Division.
Police soon learned that De La Cruz was with his friend near his home when he disappeared. According to statements made by his then-9-year-old playmate, De La Cruz was pushing his pink girl’s Huffy bicycle with two flat tires when he and his friend were approached by a man and his dog.
The man, later identified as Robert Levesque, 26, was known to neighborhood children in part because of his pet’s distinctive appearance. The dog had one white eye and one brown eye. When the boys encountered Levesque, he was pushing a mountain bike and De La Cruz’ friend told police he asked Levesque if he could have the bike.
The friend said Levesque told him he was giving the bike to De La Cruz who started following Levesque toward Lynn Common. Under instructions to wait for his father, the friend did not follow the pair.
Levesque was arrested at his parents’ home in Lowell and was held for several weeks on motor vehicle offenses, but was never charged in the De La Cruz case.
Levesque called in sick from his job as a store clerk in Marblehead on the night of the disappearance. At the time, he lived in a Western Avenue apartment, which was searched by police after his arrest. The search yielded a piece of duct tape, handcuffs, two drumsticks, a hammer and the dog with two different colored eyes, Coppinger said.
Levesque was released, as there was not enough evidence to charge him with the disappearance. Rowe said Levesque remained a person of interest upon his retirement. Coppinger said Levesque is not considered a suspect at this time.
During his 12 years on the case, Rowe said he maintained regular contact with the boy’s father, Juan De La Cruz, who lived in Texas at the time of the disappearance before moving to Florida.
Police wouldn’t release his current whereabouts but Rowe said he spoke with the father before he retired, giving him O’Toole’s name as the point of contact. Rowe said every conversation he had with Juan De La Cruz would end the same way, with him crying on the telephone.
“Anybody involved in law enforcement knows a case that haunts them long after retirement,” Rowe said. “I’m not satisfied that we were not able to provide some resolution to this case in regards to finding out what happened to Jesus.”
Coppinger said Juan De La Cruz still checks in with the Lynn Police Department once a year. The principal contact with the boy’s mother was through her sister, a Lynn resident who has since died.
The case drew widespread attention and was sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Following the disappearance, Rowe said informational roadblocks were set up at the corner of North Common and Park streets, with the intention of trying to make contact with someone who may have been driving by at the time and seen something. No one was able to provide any additional information, he added.
Coppinger said no remains were ever found matching the boy. The pond at Pine Grove Cemetery was drained, along with other ponds, but the efforts proved to be in vain. Reported bones never matched up, he said, adding that a DNA sample was obtained from the father in 2011, which was profiled and uploaded into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), in case a body was found.
Police are hopeful that De La Cruz is still out there, Coppinger said, adding that the fact that there were never any remains found anywhere leads one to believe he is alive and well someplace.
“You just hope something breaks,” he said. “Maybe someone finally gets the guilt and wants to confess.”
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley.
