Child's Body Found in Delta Mendota Canal

Pending DNA testing, authorities believe they've found young Juliani Cardenas.

PATTERSON — "At this point, we want to offer our deepest condolences to the Cardenas family for this very tragic case."

Stanislaus Sheriff Adam Christianson said although they are still waiting for official DNA confirmation, they believe a body found Tuesday morning is that of 4-year-old Juliani Cardenas.

The body was discovered some thirty miles away from where he and his kidnapper reportedly went into the canal.

...The body was taken to the Stanislaus County Coroner's office in Modesto for DNA and other testing. However, Sheriff Christianson said they have preliminarily identified it as Juliani based on the physical and clothing description. He said DNA testing could take several weeks.

Our prayers are with the family.

Reported earlier here:
Hope Running Out For Four Year Old
Bizarre Search For Kidnapped Boy Recovers Multiple Stolen Vehicles.

Hope Running Out for Four Year Old Kidnap Victim

This last Wednesday, I wrote about some of the bizarre twists and turns in searching for a four year old boy, kidnapped ten days ago. There was a tragic/comedic sense to the story as deputies, on the tip of a migrant farmworker, searched the Delta Mendota canal for the kidnapper's missing car. Day after day, vehicles were found, thirteen in all: cars, a pickup and a motorcycle, but no trace of the suspect's vehicle.

Today, they located the right car. Now, six hours after divers located it and sent a robotic camera to verify the license plate, they are just now pulling the car along with two others from the water. Because of the murky water, it is still not known if anyone is in the car. It was trapped in a "siphon", dangerous for divers to approach. Add to that, water temperature is 42 degrees with zero visibility, and only a four hour window between necessary water releases. And it's getting dark.

(Jose) Rodriguez is accused of kidnapping 4-year-old Juliani Cardenas January 18th in Patterson. Cardenas was taken from his grandmother's arms and hasn't been seen since. There was an Amber Alert issued that night. There has been no cell phone or credit card activity on Rodriguez's accounts since the kidnapping.

Authorities repeatedly told the media they do not know what is in the car, and will not know for sure until the car is brought to the surface Friday afternoon.

However, unfortunately, officials say they think the two are inside. "Everything that we know, with respect to witness statements and corroborating evidence, says that that car went into the canal, and that Jose and Juliani went with it," said Sheriff Adam Christianson, with the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Office.

As long as the car was not found in the canal, one could hold out hope that little Juliani would turn up at a Motel Six, or a border crossing or spotted speeding down the freeway. When I heard, at lunch today, that the car had been positively identified, I lost hope.

The car was empty, according to Stanislaus County Sheriffs. The windows of the car were open, and it is not known if they might have escaped or if their bodies may have been swept away.

Pray for the family. Juliani's mother is eight months pregnant with Jose Rodriguez's child.

Cross posted at LCR.

Bizarre Search For Kidnapped Boy Recovers Multiple Stolen Vehicles

Seven of nine?

There's a story out here in central California,I don't know how much attention it is getting in other parts of the country, but a little four year old boy was kidnapped, apparently by an old boyfriend of his mom's.

An eyewitness saw a car that fit the description of the one owned by the suspect, and said he saw a man and a small child in the car, as it plunged into the Delta Mendota canal, a waterway that transports drinking water to southern California.

Then, the story started getting weird. The incident happened about a week ago, and sure enough, a vehicle was found in the canal, but it wasn't the right one. The next day, another vehicle was found. Still not the right one. So far, in the last week, nine vehicles: seven cars, a pickup truck and a motorcycle have been pulled from the canal. Most, if not all of them, were stolen.

Divers continue to pull abandoned vehicles out of the Delta Mendota canal near Patterson in hopes of finding a car from an Amber Alert for a missing young boy.

Crews using sonar technology have found and removed seven cars, a pickup truck and a motorcycle from the canal, none of them matched the description of Rodriguez's car.

A Honda that was reported stolen awhile ago was pulled out Tuesday morning, followed a little while later by a motorcycle, a pickup truck and an Izuzu.

4-year-old Juliani Cardenas was taken from his grandmother's arms a week from her Patterson home. She identified the suspect as 27-year-old Jose Esteban Rodriguez. Rodriguez dated Cardenas' mother for awhile before they recently broke up.

The search continues for the little boy and for the car, and there's still hope and we pray that the little boy will be found alive, but...with all those rusting hulks at the bottom of the canal, the folks in Southern California have certainly been getting a lot of minerals with their water!

Oh, one other thing. Some folk are wondering why officials don't simply drain the canal and reveal what must be hundreds of cars submerged in its waters. The figure I heard today was that it would take 8- 10 hours to drain the canal, at a cost to the state of $3,000,000 an hour in lost revenues. That's right. Three million, with an "M".