Police called the incident "beyond disturbing."
After a 3-year-old boy named Noelvin was found curled up in a cardboard box on a stranger's porch with just a blanket for warmth in Buffalo, New York, authorities are trying to figure out how he got there and why.
“He was crawling out of the box,” Lois Augsburger, who found the boy, told ABC News 10. “He heard me. He must’ve heard me open the door and he came crawling out of the box and he had the blanket around him and I picked him up and I hugged him.”
The boy was found at 8 a.m. Monday sleeping inside a box that Augsburger normally leaves out for cats.
It was unclear how the boy got to the home, but just a short distance away, his family’s rental van was found burned out with two bodies inside. The bodies in the car, thought to be the boy’s parents, were too badly burned to be identified.
The boy’s parents, Nicole Merced Plaud, 24, and Miguel Anthony Valentin-Colon, 31, and a family friend, 29-year-old Dhamyl Mirella Roman-Audiffred, were traveling from Florida to Buffalo and were expected to arrive Sunday, according to cops. The three adults are considered missing persons. The child is currently in the care of the Erie County Child Protective Services, police said.
Police released video showing two persons of interest running from the burning car. One man is carrying two gasoline cans while the other man is holding the little boy's hand.
“Beyond disturbing,” said Buffalo Police Capt. Jeff Rinaldo. “Clearly that little boy was inside of that vehicle. There’s two human beings that burned in that vehicle. This is a horrific, horrific crime."
The boy's grandmother reunited with him and is hoping to get custody.
Police are asking anyone with information about the case to contact police at 716-851-4466.
RELATED STORIES
