SW Miami Infant Andrew Caballeiro Still Missing; Father Suspected Of Killing 3 Women
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - The search continues for a week old baby from southwest Miami-Dade who was abducted by his father who was later found dead in Pasco County.
On Thursday, his loved ones pleaded for the public's help in finding him and provided new details about the father suspected of killing the baby's mother, grandmother and great grandmother before taking his own life.
Melchor Izquierdo, the boyfriend of the aunt of the mother, told CBS4's Peter D'Oench, "We do appreciate the work of the police and what everyone is doing to reach out to the public, but if anyone has possession of Andrew (Caballeiro) please turn him in. We are not going to press charges. He is all we have. This is very sad. Everyone here is heartbroken. We are just asking that whoever has Andrew leave him somewhere like a fire department."
"We have faith that he will be found and we have information that he may be with a blonde woman who took him for whatever reason we are not sure," he said.
"This man was 49," he said. "He never had a baby before. I don't know why he did this. This man, instead of being happy about having a son, he does this crazy thing. I do know that she considered having an abortion. She wasn't even married to him. They had a rocky relationship but she had the baby. She didn't want God to punish her and didn't want to disappoint her 9-year-old daughter."
Not only is Miami-Dade police now calling Caballeiro a suspect, but our news partners at The Miami Herald are reporting that detectives obtained surveillance tape from his home that shows him leaving with his child and an AR-15 assault rifle. The newspaper says they retrieved that tape after getting a search warrant for the home.
Reyna Valdes, the aunt of the mother, told D'Oench, "The message we give the public is to know who you are involved with. This is very important. We hope the kid is alive and we hope someone will take care of him and will leave him in a place where we can pick him up. She did not want to have a relationship with him. She knew she did not want to have a relationship with him."
Miami-Dade police have released a new flyer and say there have been no sitings of the missing child.
Thursday morning, the Pasco County Sheriff's Office posted on Twitter that after an exhaustive search of the area where 49-year-old Ernesto Caballeiro's body was found, there was no sign of his infant son Andrew.
They added that there "has been no evidence discovered at the scene that confirms Andrew Caballeiro was with Ernesto Caballeiro in Pasco County."
"We had the bloodhounds out there searching. The bloodhounds hit nothing, there was no indication that the child was in the area," said Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco.
The sheriff's office said Caballeiro left Miami-Dade and drove four and a half hours to a wooded area in Blanton, about 40 miles north of Tampa, where he took his own life. Investigators said he was only in this location a few minutes before fatally shooting himself.
On Wednesday, Nocco said a blonde woman had been with Caballeiro inside his van. The sheriff's office now says the woman may have been someone who simply stopped to check on the van after the fatal shooting occurred and was not directly involved in the case.
They added that "the most promising investigative leads to the whereabouts of baby Andrew remain within Miami-Dade County at this time."
Miami-Dade police said Caballeiro's abduction of his son is linked to the discovery of the bodies of three women who were shot and killed in a home in the 21900 block of SW 187 Avenue.
According to police, a family member was conducting a welfare check when they stumbled upon the gruesome scene.
"Unable to contact him by phone, responded here to the residence and he discovered three adult females deceased," said Miami-Dade Detective Lee Cowart.
The women have been identified as 40-year-old Arlety Garcia Valdes, 60-year-old Isabela Valdes, and 84-year-old Lina Gonzalez.
It's unclear when they died.
The family created a GoFundMe page to help pay for funeral costs.
"On January 28th, 2020, 10 days after baby Andrew was born he lost his mother, grandmother, and great grandmother to a senseless act of domestic violence. Three generations of brave women were slained (sic) protecting the newborn's life."
A sister of one of the women said they plan to make a special plea to Senator Marco Rubio to try and get a special visa for her brother who lives in Cuba.
"We are making a petition to Marco Rubio so that my brother Humberto Valdez Gonzalez can be at the funeral for our family," she said.
Records show Caballeiro has been arrested several times before on charges including grand theft, operating a chop shop and aggravated assault.