Police find no evidence in 5-year-old missing boy search at park

SOUTH PASADENA, Calif. (FOX 11/CNS) - Another search was conducted today at Arroyo Seco Park in connection with the disappearance of a 5-year-old South Pasadena boy missing since April 22, but no new evidence was found.

About 80 members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and South Pasadena Police Department were conducting search operation in Arroyo Park, located at 800 Stoney Dr., and the surrounding area for Aramazd Andressian Jr., said Deputy Don Walker.

Authorities were looking for additional evidence related to the boy's disappearance, according to Walker, but there was no word on what that evidence may be or what sparked Thursday's search.

Officials told reporters about 2 p.m. that no new evidence had been found.

The search, which also will include search dogs, comes a day after the boy's mother, Ana Estevez, made a public plea for help in finding her son, calling his disappearance her "worst nightmare.''

Authorities have been looking for the boy since April 22, a search that has spanned several Southern California counties, including Santa Barbara, where authorities searched in the Lake Cachuma Recreation Area, where the boy may have been with his father on April 21.

Aramazd Andressian Sr. was arrested April 22 and released from jail three days later. He was initially held in lieu of $10 million bail after he was found unconscious at South Pasadena's Arroyo Seco Park and could not account for his son's whereabouts.

He told investigators he had arrived at the park with his son and waited for the golf course to open, and admitted ingesting prescription medication that was not prescribed to him, sheriff's Lt. Joe Mendoza said.

On April 28, the day a search warrant was served at his South Pasadena home, Andressian released a statement through his attorney about his son's disappearance.

"I hope and pray for the safe return of my only child, my namesake, who has been missing since last Saturday morning, April 22nd,'' he said.

Andressian said his son wanted to go to the park that morning before they met with his mother for a custody exchange.

"In one moment, I was at the park with my son, and then I found myself waking up in Huntington Memorial Hospital hours later. I was told that a good Samaritan found me unconscious on the ground near my car, with young Aramazd nowhere in sight. I can only speculate that I must have been attacked in the park, given my unresponsive state and subsequent physical condition,'' the statement said.

Sheriff's Capt. Chris Bergner said the weekend the child disappeared that his father's statements had "been convoluted and not consistent.''

A lack of trust in the boy's father appears to continue to underpin the investigation.

"He's been deceitful since the very beginning,'' sheriff's Det. Louie Aguilera, the lead investigator on the case, told the Los Angeles Times.

On Wednesday, a reward for information leading police to find the child was also doubled to $20,000.

Bloodhounds combed Arroyo Seco Park at least twice before today, and Sierra Madre's search-and-rescue team and the San Gabriel and San Marino police departments joined the search.

Authorities also previously searched in Orange County, where a gray 2004 four-door BMW owned by Andressian was seen on the morning of April 21 at Disneyland in Anaheim, where he and the boy apparently spent the day on April 20.

The child is white, 4-feet-1 and approximately 55 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a plaid shirt and plaid shorts and has a small mole on the bottom of his right shoulder.

South Pasadena police asked anyone with information about the boy to call them at (626) 403-7297. Sheriff's detectives can be reached at (323) 890-5500.

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