JOSHUA DAVIS - 18 Months (2011) - New Braunfels (NE of San Antonio) TX

Police Re-Interviewing Parents, Others as 1-Year Mark in Joshua Davis Jr. Case Approaches

Thursday, January 26th, 2012



(New Braunfels, TX) -- It’s been nearly a year since the
disappearance of Joshua Davis Jr., a New Braunfels toddler that made
national headlines when he apparently vanished one cold night in early
February of last year.

And with that 1-year mark of his disappearance approaching, New
Braunfels Police are taking the opportunity to re-interview the boy’s
parents and others that were in the house the night he disappeared. New
Braunfels Police Captain John McDonald says that the mother and father
and 7 other family members and friends that were in their house the
night of the boy's disappearance are being interviewed again, some for a
3rd or 4th time.

In the first hours following the disappearance of the then 18-month
old toddler, it was thought that perhaps he had simply walked outside
and wandered into the rural area surrounding the home in the 26-hundred
block of Savannah Hill Circle. But after days of searching by ground and
by air, the investigation shifted to other theories, including
abduction, along with speculation that the parents of the toddler may
have been involved, in some way, in the disappearance. But, so far, none
of those angles have panned out.

Captain McDonald says that even though a year has gone by, work on
the Joshua Davis Jr. case never stopped. New Braunfels detectives, with
the continued help of the FBI and the Texas Rangers, still work on the
missing person case often, sifting through the volumes of information
collected over the last year.

Described
at the time as 2-feet tall, weighing 30-pounds, the 18-month old was
last seen wearing a blue and red long sleeve shirt, with a grey long
sleeve t-shirt, a beige and white onesy, jeans, and black and white socks.

If you have any information that could be helpful to the
investigation of his disappearance call New Braunfels Police directly at
221-4100 or call Crimestoppers anonymously at 620-TIPS.

http://kgnb.am/news/police-re-interviewing-parents-others-1-year-mark-joshua-davis-jr-case-approaches

Seven adults were present around the time Joshua Davis Jr. went
missing from his New Braunfels home last year. A New Braunfels police
official said Wednesday that detectives now believe that some of them
haven't told the truth about what happened that night.
The
18-month-old vanished the night of Feb. 4. Texas Rangers, FBI and
hundreds of volunteers scoured adjacent fields and pockets of dense
thickets near the subdivision where Joshua lived. It had snowed that
morning and there were fears that Joshua, who has asthma, was lost in
the dark. Neighbors' homes were searched.
But no body was found.
"There
were seven adults in the house that night, and several of them have
been less than truthful with investigators," New Braunfels police Capt.
John McDonald said.
McDonald would not say how many and which
family members police suspect didn't tell the truth and would not say
why detectives believe so.
He said that the department isn't ready
to solve the case but that new information, which he did not disclose,
suggests that Joshua may be dead .
Sabrina Benitez, Joshua's mother, said Wednesday that she doesn't believe it.
"I'm still believing and keeping faith that my little boy will be home," she said.
Benitez
said she and Joshua's father, Joshua Davis, have cooperated fully with
police since their son went missing. She said officers haven't told them
that they believe someone in the family was misleading them — she's
only heard it in news reports. Benitez said she thinks the police are
trying to wrap up the case but that there's no evidence to do so.
"They
have too much heat underneath them, so they're going to come to this
stupid little theory \u2026 that my son's dead," Benitez said. "I can't
tell them something I don't know, and that's what they want me to do."
She said she doesn't know what happened, but she and Davis suspect a man at the house that night knows more than he's revealed.
They haven't spoken to the man, who was a family friend, since last year, she said.
Neighbors have also speculated that there's more to the story than has been disclosed.
Gracie
Muñoz, a kindergarten teacher who lives with her family next-door to
the house from which Joshua disappeared, told the American-Statesman in
August that she doesn't think Joshua wandered off because of his calm
demeanor.
"I really think someone took him," Muñoz said. "I think he was taken by someone he knew."
Benitez
and Davis are living at her mother's house with their younger son,
Jeidan. He'll turn one later this month. Jeidan was born shortly after
Joshua went missing.
For months, the couple has put Joshua's face
on a billboard on Interstate 35, Benitez said, alerting drivers to his
disappearance and asking for help. She said they also put up posters
that say "missing" and ask people to call the police with any
information.
"We're still going to church. We're still praying. We're still believing," Benitez said. "You can only do so much though."
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/a-year-later-new-braunfels-police-say-search-2142100.html

NEW BRAUNFELS — A year after Joshua Davis Jr. vanished from his family's rural home, investigators say inconsistent and misleading statements by some of those present the night he disappeared are impeding efforts to determine the fate of the missing boy.

“There were seven people in the house, and some of them have been truthful and some have not,” said Capt. John McDonald of the New Braunfels police, who are being assisted by the FBI and Texas Rangers.

The boy's parents, Sabrina Benitez and Josh Davis Sr., say they've revealed all they know and are clinging to hope their son will surface alive.

“It's been a whole year of not waking up from a nightmare,” said Benitez, 22. “Not knowing where he's at, if he's alive, if he's being fed.”

No sign of the boy was found during a days-long search by dogs, drones and hundreds of volunteers around the southern New Braunfels residence, leaving police doubtful that the 18-month-old merely wandered off on Feb. 4, 2011.

“They searched my house three times,” said a neighbor who helped look for Josh. “We're paying more attention now to what goes on in our neighborhood, who's coming and going.”

Investigators theorize that Joshua was somehow injured that night and then removed from the house, McDonald said.

“Although we would love to find baby Josh alive, the investigation is pointing us toward a different theory, that the child most likely is deceased,” he said.

No one is being called a suspect or person of interest, he said, despite inconsistencies in the accounts of those at the mobile home that night.

Frustrated by what they see as a misplaced focus on them, the boy's family contends the key to the case lies with a visiting friend who left the home just before Josh was discovered missing, and who has cut off all communication except for relaying his condolences the next day.

“They keep insisting we know more than we've told them,” said Josh Davis, 24, who denies knowing about any injury to Joshua or his whereabouts. “I can't share information I don't have.”

He confirmed that police told him and his father, Jerome Davis, that elevated heart rates on their polygraph tests just after the boy vanished raised suspicions of duplicity.

“How would you feel if your child was missing for days?” asked Josh Davis, who offered to be retested. “I'll do anything and everything to get my child back.”

Jerome Davis, 58, is angered by police suspicions that he's concealing something about that fateful night at his home a year ago, which he denies.

McDonald said the friend that Josh Davis suspects holds the key to the case has “hired an attorney and done several interviews. The cooperation is there to a certain extent.”

Private investigator Charlie Parker, who briefly worked on the case for the family, subscribes to the theory that the boy was accidentally fatally injured — possibly run over by a car.

“Rather than call the police, I think they buried the body and I think the family knows where it is,” said Parker, who reported finding no blood or other evidence on vehicles he checked.

Calling the case his department's top priority, McDonald urged anyone with information about it to call 830-620-TIPS.

“I would rather someone call in a tip that we've heard 20 times than them not call in at all thinking we've already heard it,” he said.


Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/A-year-later-no-sign-of-Joshua-3041473.php#ixzz1lW3UIHfe

Missing Josh Davis Jr. remembered on his third birthday

Posted: Thursday, August 16, 2012 11:45 pm
By Dalondo Moultrie New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung

NEW BRAUNFELS — Joshua Davis Jr.’s family celebrated his third birthday at his grandmother’s house Thursday night in New Braunfels.

And amidst tears, balloons and cake — which his little brother prominently fingered — relatives remembered Josh and prayed for his safe return.

http://herald-zeitung.com/news/local_news/article_ebb269cc-e814-11e1-9208-001a4bcf887a.html

New Braunfels boy missing 2 years
Family of Joshua Davis Jr. marks somber anniversary with prayers, balloon release

Author: Tim Gerber , Reporter, tgerber@ksat.com
Published On: Feb 04 2013 09:58:12 PM CST
Updated On: Feb 05 2013 12:10:12 AM CST

NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas -

Benitez and Josh Davis Senior have been waiting to be reunited with their son for 2 years.

Joshua Davis Junior was just 18-months-old when he virtually vanished into thin air from his parent's New Braunfels mobile home on February 4, 2011.

Despite no signs of the boy ever being found by investigators, Benitez refuses to give up hope.

"Until they come to me with something else I believe my son's alive," Benitez said. "I believe we'll all be together as a family again."

A massive search effort in the days following the toddler's disappearance turned up nothing in the fields around the family's rural home. New Braunfels Police said they're no closer to finding the boy or solving the case.

Investigators said there were 9 people in the mobile home the night Joshua disappeared. Investigators said some of those friends and family members have not been cooperative.

"I believe there are people who aren't cooperating but I can stand here and say that me and Josh, we've cooperated 100 percent," Benitez said.

Tired of being considered suspects by some in the community, Josh Davis, Sr., said they've done everything that's been asked of them by police.

"I've cooperated, Sabrina's cooperated," Davis said. "Every time they've called us in, we've went down there."

Because so much time has passed, it's likely Joshua Davis looks nothing like his picture on the missing person flyer that's been circulated for the past 2 years. In fact, Kate Shields, Executive Director of the Heidi Search Center said the boy probably looks an awful lot like his younger brother.

Shields said the two boys looked nearly identical as babies and she believes Josh's physical progression may be similar to the younger brother he's never met.

"You know Joshua's face could look much like (his brother) now which is of course looks very much like his mother," Shields said adding they are working to get an updated picture of Joshua on flyers using age progression.

As the family continues its search for answers, they pray little Joshua will find his way home and make their family whole again.

http://www.ksat.com/news/New-Braunfels-boy-missing-2-years/-/478452/18408736/-/ogb2ns/-/index.html