Fall was a special season for 5-year-old Lucian Munguia of Yakima, who has been missing two months this week. Family, friends and community members continue to search for Lucian, who
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Family continues search and outreach for Yakima boy missing two months
Fall was a special season for 5-year-old Lucian Munguia of Yakima, who has been missing two months this week.
He enjoyed shopping for pumpkins, wearing Halloween pajamas and ringing doorbells during neighborhood trick or treating.
“This year it was really hard to walk into the store and see those pumpkins because if he were with me, he’d have to have them,” his mom Sandra Munguia said in an interview.
Munguia said she and her husband, Juan, have not stopped searching for Lucian, who is autistic and nonverbal.
“We’re still out there everyday, at some point in the day or night,” she said, checking new places and spots that have already been searched.
Some of the family members who came to Yakima to help with the initial search have returned home and are now doing what they can from afar while support continues to come in from local family and community members, Munguia said.
The family is also working with police.
The department is asking anyone with video from the park from 6:45 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. the day Lucian was reported missing to share it with police, Inzunza said.
While early reports said YPD had video footage showing Lucian heading south and east from the parking lot, Inzunza said that information was actually based on interviews, including a child forensic interview.
YPD also confirmed that Lucian and his family were at the park by confirming Lucian’s father’s timeline of events leading to Lucian’s disappearance, Inzunza said.
YPD investigators say there appears to be no foul play in Lucian’s disappearance, based on the available evidence.
“While we cannot rule out foul play for definite, detectives have looked extensively into all avenues, including witness statements, polygraphs, background investigations, timelines, canvassing the entire area in and around the park for clues of wrongdoing, tip follow-ups from the local community as well as nationwide,” Inzunza said in an email, “but nothing thus far points to any foul play.”
Munguia said waterways are still a focus for the search, and people continue to go out on rafts and kayaks to search. Divers have searched the ponds at the park, but not the river. Divers were willing to go in the river, but law enforcement said — and the family agreed — that the river is too dangerous, she said.
“We don’t want to put anybody in harm’s way,” Munguia said.
She said she has talked to detectives about searching farther down the river, where the water could have carried Lucian over the top of dams.
The family is also continuing outreach at local events. Munguia and her kids participated in a trunk-or-treat event at Steve Hahn Auto Group last week, passing out candy and flyers and selling hot chocolate. Their vehicle’s trunk was decorated to an under-the-sea theme.
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