Officials Say Missing Boy Was Strangled

Riverside County coroner’s officials Wednesday positively identified the body of a boy discovered in a shallow grave near here as that of 3-year-old Bobby Crawford of Glen Avon, who had been missing since Oct. 27.

Deputy Coroner Stephanie Albright said an autopsy showed the cause of death to be “manual strangulation” and revealed a brain hemorrhage, “most likely from some sort of blunt-force trauma.”

Albright said forensic experts also determined that “very possibly this boy had been out there the full six days” since he was last seen with his 18-month-old brother, Jason, in the dune buggy of his mother’s boyfriend, Raymond Eugene Ferrell, 29, of Glen Avon. Ferrell disappeared shortly after being questioned by police in the incident and is considered the prime suspect in what has become a homicide case.

Sheriff’s spokesman Don Bender predicted Wednesday that Ferrell will be arrested soon.

“His arrest could come any minute,” Bender said at a press conference. “We believe he is in the local area . . . and we know he has contacted friends and relatives . . . asking for money.”

Bender said investigators have found “physical evidence” at the gravesite, located in an orange grove near Lake Mathews, southwest of here. He declined to elaborate except to say that the evidence included a “partially stripped Volkswagen” that was reported stolen in the Riverside area a month ago and had “been there for some time.”

In a telephone interview, Bobby’s mother, Karen Hill, 21, of Glen Avon, said she accompanied investigators to the site Tuesday and informed them that she “had been out at that location with Raymond twice before.”

“Ray and I were there two days before my Bobby was missing,” Hill said. “He showedme a stripped-down Volkswagen and took a starter and gauges off it. . . . My son’s body wasfound 30 feet away from that car.”

Ride in Dune Buggy

Hill described Ferrell as self-employed, earning money from repairing and restoring Volkswagens and painting vehicles.

Hill had been staying at the home of her father, Robert Hill, 57, along with her children and Ferrell, when Bobby turned up missing after a trip in the dune buggy to a local convenience store, authorities said. Bender said that inconsistencies in Ferrell’s story have made him a suspect in the case.

Meanwhile, Hill said her husband, Robert Crawford, from whom she is separated, won temporary custody of Jason on Wednesday at a Riverside court hearing.

Jason had earlier been placed in the custody of the county Department of Social Services because of indications, including bruises around his neck, that he may have been abused, authorities said.