Fighting the Fear

Worried parents here escorted their children to and from school Tuesday and established strict safety rules after the remains of a 12-year-old neighborhood boy were found over the weekend, dismembered and encased in concrete.

“I’ve told my kids, ‘Don’t confide in strangers, be very careful and come straight home or straight to my restaurant after school,’ ” said Alfonso Gomez, who drove his 12-year-old daughter on Tuesday to Washington Middle School, the school that Juan Delgado had attended. “If they aren’t at the restaurant or at home within a half-hour after school, then we’ll start looking for them. . . . We are all scared.”

Gomez said he saw Juan walking with murder suspect John Samuel Ghobrial on the afternoon the youngster disappeared. The two were walking down an alley together, he said.

Ghobrial, a 27-year-old Egyptian immigrant missing his right hand and forearm, was formally charged Tuesday with first-degree murder and lewd and lascivious conduct on a child younger than 14, indicating that prosecutors believe he sexually molested the boy.

Arraignment was postponed to April 17 and Municipal Judge Michael W. Hayes in Fullerton ordered that Ghobrial be held without bail.

Parents and other residents of the neighborhood where Juan Delgado lived said Ghobrial had been a common sight around the area for several months, panhandling for spare change and often using the money to buy candy for children. Most of the parents said they had given Ghobrial money at one time or another.

“We always saw [Ghobrial] handing out candy to children and patting them on the head, and it always made me feel uncomfortable,” said Teresa Cuevas, who walked her daughter to the middle school Tuesday. “My children knew not to talk to him. Children are innocent. They don’t deserve to be harmed in any way and this whole thing has left me very nervous.”

Cuevas said her daughter was a friend of Juan. “It’s so difficult and traumatizing for my daughter. . . . I’m just repeating to my kids that they need to run away from strangers and never accept anything from them because you just can’t trust anyone.”

Guadalupe Bautista, another parent who dropped off her son at Washington, said the slaying made her consider moving out of the area.

“But this kind of crime can happen anywhere,” she said. “I just don’t know what to think, but I’m keeping a very close watch of my kids and I tell them to tell me whenever anything happens or when they feel suspicious of strange people.”

Normally independent-minded middle-schoolers were asking their parents to walk or drive them to school, the parents said.

Dan Martin, a school district psychologist who was counseling students at Washington, said that fear is a common theme he is hearing from the children, along with grief.

“On Monday, the teachers and students expressed disbelief and shock,” said Martin, one of four psychologists from the La Habra City School District who spent Monday and Tuesday at Washington. “Today, they’re more somber and they’re working through their fears.”

The thought of taking action is helping some students, Martin said. “They are planning on holding a car wash to raise money for his family and planting a tree for him on campus.”

The school will host a meeting for parents at 7 p.m. Thursday. Psychologists and police will be on hand to discuss the murder case.

Shirley Goins, executive director of the California chapter of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said the anxiety is natural.

“It’s awful difficult not to be jittery,” she said. “But parents must know where their children are and they must teach their children to be safe without scaring them. Tragedies like Juan’s murder sensitize people and heighten awareness.”

Goins said her organization conducts child abduction prevention lessons in schools throughout the state. Some of the tips she offers include telling children to run away from strangers and scream, reject gifts from strangers, walk with friends, and let parents, teachers, police or other caregivers know where they are at all times.

Gomez, whose daughter and son attend Washington and whose restaurant is across the street, said that shortly after school let out March 17, he saw Juan and Ghobrial walking together in the alley behind the restaurant, Ghobrial holding a soccer ball. He said he thought nothing of it at the time, since Ghobrial frequented the area around the school and often talked to children. That was the day Juan failed to return home.

Police said they would check out Gomez’s tip.

After filing charges against Ghobrial on Tuesday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Jim Tanizaki declined to say exactly what led prosecutors to believe the victim had been molested. The victim’s pelvis has not been recovered.

“We feel there is sufficient evidence even without that body part,” Tanizaki said. ‘We filed that special circumstance charge because we felt we could prove it.”

The backyard shed in La Habra that the suspect lived in was strewn with sexually explicit magazines and children’s toys and candy.

The prosecutor said there might be additional suspects who knowingly or unknowingly helped Ghobrial carry out the crime.

Tanizaki said the district attorney’s office would not be deciding on whether to seek the death penalty until after Ghobrial’s preliminary hearing. He said it would likely take nine months to a year before Ghobrial’s case goes to trial, particularly if it becomes a death penalty case.

The judge did not allow photographers to film the defendant’s face after a strong protest from Deputy Public Defender Robert Knox.

Juan Delgado’s family did not attend the court session Tuesday. Juan’s 14-year-old brother, Jorge, said Tuesday that his family is extremely grief-stricken. “We miss Juan,” he said. “He was a good brother and friend.”