2 Arrested In Georgia Boy's Disappearance

Authorities searched Wednesday for a 6-year-old boy who vanished after he went out to play nearly a week earlier, and police arrested two men on charges they lied to investigators by claiming to have buried the child's body.

David Edenfield and Donald Dale were charged after leading officers during the night to a spot where they said the boy was buried near the mobile home park.

"They took them out to show them where the body was buried, but they could not locate the body," said Capt. Jim Nazzrie. "We don't know whether they're just telling crazy lies or if they know something."

Edenfield is the father of a convicted sex offender who's considered a suspect in the boy's disappearance, Nazzrie said. George David Edenfield lives across the street from the boy's grandmother and has told police he played a role in abducting Christopher Michael Barrios who disappeared March 8.

Sue Rodriguez said her grandson ran into her home after school, dropped his jacket and book bag, grabbed a lemonade and went outside to play. Neighbors reported seeing him playing on a swing set a few houses down from where he lived with his father in the mobile home park.

A $31,500 reward has been offered for Christopher's return. Dozens of volunteers have helped search for the boy along roads and in the woods surrounding the mobile home park where his father and his grandmother live just outside the port city of Brunswick on the Georgia coast.

On Monday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation issued a Levi's Call, the state's equivalent of an Amber Alert, for Christopher. Typically, that's only done in a known child abduction case.

"The only thing that makes any sense is he was abducted," Police Chief Matt Doering said Tuesday.

Investigators say tips from George David Edenfield and his mother also have failed to lead them to the boy.

The younger Edenfield has been jailed on charges he violated his probation, which prohibits him from contact with children under 18. His mother, Peggy Edenfield, has been arrested on charges of giving false statements to police.

Doering said Tuesday that George David Edenfield and his mother both have changed their stories several times.

"He's made four, five or six different statements, all conflicting," Doering said Tuesday.

Rodriguez said she had warned her grandson to stay away from the Edenfield home after she found her neighbor's name on Georgia's online sex offender registry.

"I told him, 'Christopher, they're not nice people. Stay away from them,'" Rodriguez said.

Neighbors told Christopher's father, who was at his job as a Cracker Barrel waiter and cook, they saw the boy just after 6 p.m. playing by himself on a swing set outside a friend's house.

Mike Barrios says his son wouldn't just run off — he's a shy boy who likes to stick close to his family, but with a wide smile that shows off the silver caps on his front teeth. Like many boys his age, he loves video games and superheroes such as Batman and Spider-Man. He adopted a stray tabby cat that roams the mobile home park, calling him Jimmy.

"Anyone who has my son, I want them to know I love my son, I miss him and I want him to come home," Barrios said Tuesday while sitting outside his trailer feeding sliced sandwich meat to the cat.

Doering, the police chief, said investigators found a piece of evidence related to Christopher's case at the suspected neighbor's trailer, but he declined to elaborate on what it was.