FBI Trying to Solve Mystery of Deaf-Mute Boy

The FBI is trying to learn the identity of an 8-year-old deaf-mute boy who indicates he may have walked away from a plane crash several years ago that possibly killed his family.

But the boy’s background is a mystery, despite the repeated drawings of the plane and bodies, FBI agent Terry Kincaid said Saturday. Kincaid said: “We have no idea how much of his sketches are his own idea or his imagination or maybe re-creations of popular television shows.”

The boy, believed to be 7 or 8, has been in a child protective service center since November in Juarez, Mexico, where he was found on the streets, but investigators suspect he might be from the United States because of his preferences in food and games.

Kincaid said the FBI will cross-check the boy’s footprints with records in the United States and in Mexico sometime within the next week.

He said that during a trip to an ear specialist in New York, the boy became excited when he saw a soldier. “We’re exploring the possibility that his father may have been a policeman or soldier, or someone associated with a uniform,” he said.

Mexican social workers contacted their El Paso counterparts last month, and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Washington sought the help of the FBI in El Paso last week to find the boy’s identity. He is 4 feet 6, has dark blond to light brown hair and a slightly freckled white complexion.

Officials are not certain where the boy stayed before he was found on the street.

The mystery boy’s pictures of a crashed airplane include people that he describes as his father, mother, younger sister and himself and have the numbers “28D, 23” written under the airplane.

During an interview Friday, the boy pointed to scars on his left knee, stomach and back, and back to the crash drawing. The age of the boy’s scars led doctors to believe that if they had been caused by a crash, it would have been two to three years ago.

Social workers said that through drawings and other communication, the boy has revealed background details that indicate his father was missing four fingers on his right hand and had a mustache and that the family lived in a place that had knee-deep snow, heavy rainfall, mountains and trees.