Body Found Near Home of Missing O.C. Toddler

The body of a small boy partially covered in debris was found Tuesday afternoon about 400 yards from where a 2-year-old Mission Viejo toddler disappeared Monday morning, authorities said.

“The body matches the general description” of the missing boy, said Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Ron Wilkerson. “At this time we don’t know the cause of death.”

Wilkerson said the case is being investigated as a homicide.

Investigators are questioning the boy’s mother, Edith Marie Wu, 30, stepfather Feilong Wu, 26, neighbors and others in the area about the disappearance. Wilkerson stressed Tuesday night that the parents are not considered suspects.

The couple’s apartment will be searched again as “part of the procedure,” he said.

An El Toro Marine helping in the two-day search for Cecil “C.T.” Turner spied the body about 3:30 in a heavily wooded slope about 15 feet from the bank of Oso Creek. The Marine was searching an area just north of where scores of volunteers left off just before dawn Tuesday, authorities said.

The toddler’s parents told investigators that the blue-eyed, tow-headed C.T., dressed only in a diaper, slipped out of the family’s apartment in the 24900 block of Via Florecer between 8 and 8:45 a.m. Monday while his mother slept and his stepfather was jogging.

The mother said she discovered C.T. was missing when she was awakened by her 4-year-old daughter Bryttnie and found the front door ajar. Feilong Wu last saw C.T. just before he left for his morning run.

“We thought maybe C.T. followed my husband after he left to go jogging,” Edith Marie Wu said Monday.

After the mother’s frantic emergency call, sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, neighbors and bloodhound teams scoured the area around the 166-unit Villa Marguerite complex throughout the day and night, digging into trash cans and the dense brush along the creek. Searchers used infrared scopes and enlisted a psychic as the hours passed.

On Tuesday, waves of up to 100 volunteers at a time--women with strollers, kids on bicycles, 50 Marines and deputies on horseback, braved the dizzying heat to look for the toddler. Neighbors set up card tables with ice water as the temperature soared.

Lisa Bogan of Mission Viejo, who lives nearby, was alerted by a circling helicopter on Monday and wound up searching until 4 a.m. On Tuesday, she and her daughter, Icedra, 11, drew a crowd by arriving with cold oranges, water and ice.

About 2 p.m., some unidentified searchers found a diaper along the creek, but it was unclear whether it had belonged to C.T.

When the news came that a body had been found in the dusty creek bed weeds, a pall fell over the group of sweaty volunteers. They clustered just beyond the yellow plastic police tape, unsure and somehow unable to leave while the body remained unidentified.

Bogan choked up. “As a mom, I feel terrible for the parents and their loss. There is so much possibility for a young person--growing up, school, having children of their own. I don’t even want to think about it, I’ll cry.”

James Renne, 32, of Mission Viejo, looked as though he’d received a sucker punch to the gut.

“It sent chills through my spine,” he said. “I was hoping to God it wasn’t going to be the little boy. But it appears it is.”

Renne, his wife, Gina, and his 7-year-old daughter had searched until 3 a.m. Tuesday morning. Nine hours later, they came back with enough water for all the volunteers.

“I have a 7-year-old daughter,” Renne said. “This kind of thing kind of touches the heart.”

As the search progressed Tuesday, the Wu family huddled with sheriff’s investigators at a substation.

It was a tragic new start for the couple, who had moved to Mission Viejo three weeks ago from Austin, Texas.

In mid-May Feilong Wu, who came to the United States in 1993, became a diving coach with the renowned Mission Viejo Nadadores Diving Team, according to Ann Vincent, a team spokesperson.

In his native China, Wu was a national diving champion and World University Games gold medalist, according to his Nadadores biography. He coached at the University of Texas in Austin prior to the Nadadores, Vincent said.

Since his arrival, Wu has been assisting wherever he was needed, Vincent said, primarily with the Junior Olympic, junior and senior national team members.

Wu, who was chosen from 100 applicants, has been working without pay while he is waiting for work papers and he and his family have been supported by donations from team members, Vincent said.

“Divers and parents are devastated [by] what has happened,” Vincent said. “He has a lot of support from this team and we’ll do whatever we can to help he and his family through this very difficult time,”

On Tuesday most of the civilian searchers agreed.

A sunburned 60-year-old David Brooks spent all of Tuesday in the brush, leading a group of volunteers. A trained member of the Sheriff’s Department Search and Rescue team, Brooks has been volunteering for rescues for 40 years, first as a member of the British Special Forces.

“Somebody needs help and you just go and do it,” Brooks said. “We don’t take medals, we don’t take prisoners, we just go out and try to find the little boy.”

Jeff Gaeth, 44, a real estate salesman from Rancho Santa Margarita, was driving to work Tuesday when he heard a news report. He quickly worked up a sweat in his work clothes, but didn’t seem to care.

“I figured I didn’t really need to work today,” said Gaeth, the father of two sons, 7 and 9. “I really sympathize with the family.”

Gayle Wood of Mission Viejo, 42, seemed to sum up the motives of many of the people in the search party.

“If my child was missing, I’d certainly want people to come and help me look,” Wood said.

Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers Geoff Boucher and Erik Hamilton.