
Worcester, MA -- Nov. 1, 1999 -- As the search for a missing baby moved to a new area, the Worcester district attorney said he was close to naming suspects in the boy's disappearance from a foster home a year ago.
''[This] week, we may be able to name some suspects, although not right now,'' said District Attorney John J. Conte.
Investigators have said they suspect 5-month-old Marlon Devine Santos was suffocated, and had focused their search in one section of woods off the Wachusett Reservoir.
The search for the infant shifted last weekend to an area about 3 miles southeast, off Diamond Hill Avenue near Routes 70 and 140, in a watershed protection area owned by the Metropolitan District Commission.
Investigators found a baby blanket, diaper and about a dozen other pieces of potential evidence at the first site, though Conte cautioned that none of it had been definitively linked to the missing child.
Dogs from the Connecticut State Police joined the search, but their efforts were unsuccessful.
Investigators said they plan to explore the scene by air tomorrow night with infrared detection equipment normally used in drug investigations.
The baby was reported missing from his Worcester foster home on Nov. 7, 1998. Foster parents Jose M. Castillo and Yolanda I. Castillo said he had disappeared from their home two days earlier.
Neither foster parent is cooperating with investigators in the suspected murder of the baby, Conte has said.
UPDATE
Dec. 20, 2001 -- Jose M. Castillo, the former foster father of a missing boy, is appealing his conviction on charges of sexually assaulting a former foster daughter and is seeking a new trial.
Mr. Castillo, whose foster son, Marlon Devine Santos, disappeared from the Castillo home at 175 Eastern Ave. nearly two years ago, was sentenced to 5 to 7 1/2 years in state prison on charges of indecent assault and battery on a child and indecent assault and battery.
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