Police Searchers in Disbelief After Overlooking Boy’s Body

A day after a boy was found at the bottom of a swimming pool where he lay unseen for nearly 48 hours, the reaction from officers who had frantically searched for him could be summed up by one word: disbelief.

“They are saying, ‘What? . . . I saw the bottom of that pool!’ ” said Capt. Debra McCarthy of the West Los Angeles station. “In their minds, they knew what they saw.”

Some officers still don’t believe the official explanation: that a layer of cloudy, milky water obscured the body, which was found early Tuesday, ending a search in the Holmby Hills neighborhood where 7-year-old Paolo Ayala had attended a birthday party. Officers were searching the Internet, or calling pool maintenance companies, trying to find explanations, McCarthy said.

Commanders were trying out unfamiliar terms such as “suspended particulates” and “turbidity” as they tried to explain what happened--not only to the public, but to themselves.

“I find it baffling,” said Capt. Richard Wemmer. “It’s just utterly amazing.... The consensus is that everyone thought they were looking at the bottom.”

“It’s a bitter pill,” McCarthy said. “We feel terrible. We accept responsibility.”

Despite a coroner’s report that concluded that the body had not been moved, officers kept walking to the pool, shaking their heads, still not understanding how what looked like a white pool bottom really was not, McCarthy said.

Police said Thursday that all protocols were followed in the search for the boy, which began late Sunday afternoon when he was discovered missing. Police asserted that there is no reason to think officers were sloppy or cursory in their investigation.

They said officers did what they were supposed to--that is, they did not simply take witnesses’ words at face value, but went to look themselves.

The pool “was a No. 1 concern,” Wemmer said. “When they found out there was a pool, they immediately went to check it.”

Many officers later returned to the pool, he said. One skeptical lieutenant even went back three separate times to make sure, Wemmer said. But police also acknowledged that only in hindsight does it seem clear that the pool warranted extra scrutiny. They describe an investigation that quickly moved in other directions, away from the scenario of a possible drowning.

Certain that they were seeing the bottom of a whitish pool, where the body of a dark-haired, olive-skinned boy would have been clearly visible, detectives spent two nights and a full day in pursuit of other leads.

Was the boy hiding in the house? Had he run away, perhaps fearing discipline? Had he been kidnapped?

When first notified of the search at home Sunday evening, for example, Wemmer could not recall if the pool even came up. Arriving on the scene the next morning, he acknowledged that “the pool was not front and center.”

Similarly, McCarthy, who arrived early Monday, also quickly moved on from the pool. She looked into the pool from the side and from a deck above, and, secure in the knowledge that she had seen the bottom, concentrated on other possible scenarios to explain the disappearance.

She and other police officials describe being preoccupied with other tasks: identifying registered sex offenders in the neighborhood, calling in bloodhounds, appealing to the public for leads.

And in a point that was to later prove critical, McCarthy said that no one seems to remember seeing a drain at the bottom of the pool, or any other object to mar what appeared to be a smooth, light-colored surface.

After a pool maintenance man put chemicals into the pool and the body was subsequently discovered, it became clear that the bottom was not, as it had first appeared, smooth and white.

Instead, it was slightly bluish in color and a little battered-looking, McCarthy said. A drain and a pair of goggles left on the bottom in the deep end had come into view. They appeared as through a mist, McCarthy said. Seeing them, she realized that the water was indeed slightly cloudy.

Recalling the scene in hindsight, McCarthy remembers thinking she thought the deepest part of the pool was about 6 feet. The pool is 9 feet deep.

From now on, she said, “the rule will be, if you can’t see a drain, you can’t see the bottom.”

Police said that a white, chalky silt had rendered the water milky enough to obscure the deeper reaches of the pool, settling in a layer that looked like the bottom.

Paolo was found under a ladder near the wall of the pool in the deep end, lying on a slope, 80 inches down.

James Ribe, of the coroner’s office, said white silt was found on the boy’s hands and knees.

Cmdr. Gary Brennan said the search will be reviewed to “determine if we can learn anything. Do we need to look at our investigative protocols? Do we need to create other protocols?”

The parents of the boy said Thursday they will file a lawsuit against the party’s hosts but not the police.

The Ayalas spoke to reporters at their Beverly Hills apartment, thanking those who helped search for their son.

Wemmer was contrite.

“I am so sorry the family had to suffer as long as they did.”