By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Associated Press Writer Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 28 mins ago
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – An autopsy was conducted Saturday on the body of an unidentified small child found buried in the sand of a public park playground, as investigators looked for the boy's parents or guardian.

The body was discovered Friday by a woman who had taken her own children to the city's Alvarado Park and spotted a shoe sticking out of the sand.

Police renewed their call for the public's help Saturday in finding the 3- to 5-year-old boy's family and learning how he ended up buried in the playground sand.

"No one has stepped forward as parent, guardian or caretaker or any other relationship with this child," police spokesman John Walsh said Saturday. "Anybody who has seen or heard of any, anything, involving a child in that area, we want them to call us."

The autopsy at the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator began at 9 a.m. Saturday, Walsh said.

Police Chief Ray Schultz said at a news conference late Friday that police had received no reports of missing children but believe he may be from the neighborhood around the park in northeast Albuquerque.

A team of about 50 investigators canvassed the area around the park until early Saturday and resumed the effort after daybreak, Walsh said.

Forensic experts who exhumed the body told police that the boy could not have been dead longer than 48 hours, Walsh said.

Neighbors were shaken by the discovery.

"I run in this park every day. I've lived here for 17 years, it's very upsetting," Marlisa Gomez told KOAT-TV.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090516/ap_on_re_us/us_playground_body


the poor baby

That is so sad

Kind of makes me wonder about the fate of the human race when a child can be tossed away like that...makes me angry!

Kind of makes me wonder about the fate of the human race when a child can be tossed away like that...makes me angry!

i just keep thinking of a little one alone in a grave somewhere where no one cared that should have cared. i couldn't imagine that. it really breaks my heart

OMG this is so horrible

I hope they find who did this and the parents of the child (if different than the one that did this)

Hate to say this but this isn't new to the human race, it's just more pulic in todays world.

boo..you are right. things like this have happened since who knows when. I just hope they find th parents and find out who did this

Would like to know what the autopsy presents. Wonder if the boy possibly died naturally but the parents were afraid to report it, especially in this day and age when society is so hyper sensitive to child abuse.

if he had died of natural causes...then an autopsy would have said so if the parents had done what they should have