BUFFALO, N.Y. – Police in Buffalo now know the identity of the 3-year-old boy found asleep on a stranger’s porch Monday morning, but they’re still trying to figure out how he got there—and what happened to his parents.
The boy’s paternal grandmother tells WIVB that his name is Noelvin and he traveled to Buffalo from Florida for a vacation with his parents and a family friend.
The grandmother, Zenaida Colon, says she last spoke to the boy’s parents—Nicole Merced Plaud and Miguel Anthony Valentin-Colon—on Sunday, and she fears that they are the people found dead in a burned-out car in Buffalo on Monday evening. The friend, Dhamyl Mirella Roman-Audiffred, is also missing. The vehicle was so badly burned that police have been unable to identify the model.
Colon and other relatives who flew up from Florida say the couple has two other children, who are both safe at home. She says her son is a truck driver and his wife is a stay-at-home mom. “They are just regular parents,” she says. “Great parents.” Police say “a complicated investigation” is underway and it will take time to identify the remains found in the burned vehicle, reports the Buffalo News.
Noelvin is currently in the custody of Erie County Child Protective Services and authorities say they are working to reunite him with the relatives from Florida.
Lois Augsburger, the homeowner who found the boy, tells WKBW that she asked him where his mommy was. “He said ‘the car’s on fire.’ That’s all he kept saying,” she says. (Read more Buffalo stories.)
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