Police Have No Clues in Disappearance of Baby

At midnight Saturday, 20-year-old Diana Velasquez gave her baby sister a bottle and put her in a crib. That was the last time anyone in the family remembers seeing the 8-month-old, whose baffling disappearance prompted a widening search of Bell Gardens and surrounding areas Monday.

“My parents came home about 1 o’clock (from a party),” Velasquez said, standing outside the family’s tract home on Ajax Avenue in the largely blue-collar community. “At 8 o’clock (the next morning), my mother woke me up and asked where the baby was . . . and the baby was gone.

“We were all hysterical.”

Bell Gardens Police Lt. Dale Pierce, directing a six-officer search party, said there appear to be no clues.

The parents, Micaele Velasquez, 38, and David Prado, 37, told police they were very drunk after the party and do not recall if the baby was in the crib when they arrived home, Pierce said.

The couple also told police they may have gone out for food at a taco stand several blocks from their home, Pierce said. However, they do not recall whether they made the trip or whether they took the baby with them, the lieutenant said.

“It’s their practice to go for tacos after they go out at night, or in the early morning hours,” Pierce said. “In the past they have also taken the child with them--not every occasion, but sometimes.

“They described themselves as both being highly intoxicated.”

Police interviewed taco stand employees on the theory that the couple might have inadvertently left the baby there, but no one recalled seeing the couple or the baby, Pierce said.

Investigators also searched in vain in the crawl spaces under homes in the neighborhood, even though the baby, named Jandel Prado, was unable to crawl or walk.

The baby was described as 26 inches tall, with a medium complexion, black hair and gold stud earrings. She has a small birthmark on her knee.

Diana Velasquez, the second-oldest of six children living in the home, expressed fears that the baby was kidnaped during the night. After putting the baby to bed and going to bed herself, she left the back door of the house unlocked for her parents, the daughter said.

“We think somebody is holding the baby just to see us suffer,” Velasquez said. “To get back at my mom.”

Pierce said police were contacting dozens of relatives and friends, so far without any luck.

Diana Velasquez described her parents as too distraught to face the parade of reporters and televisions crews that descended on the home Monday afternoon.