Family works to make sure missing N.Y. boy is not forgotten

NEW YORK — The fliers all say the same thing, but in different languages: Perdido. Brakujacy. Disparet. Vermisst. Perso.

Missing.

They are on lampposts, on the sides of mailboxes and in subway stations from the northern Bronx to Brooklyn. They are stuck with tape on flat surfaces from trendy SoHo in Manhattan to desolate side streets of Queens.

It has been nearly three months since Avonte Oquendo, a doe-eyed 14-year-old with autism, was captured on video dashing out the door of his school on Oct. 4 in a well-traveled neighborhood of Queens, across the road from the playgrounds, dog runs and jogging paths lining the glistening waters of the East River.

Teens, adults and children are reported missing nearly every day in New York City: an 86-year-old man who walked away from his home on Oct. 7; a 16-year-old girl dropped off at school on Dec. 18; a 24-year-old mother and her infant who left a birthday party on Dec. 20. Most are found. Not Avonte, whose disappearance in broad daylight has baffled police and his family, who with a dwindling army of volunteers are determined to keep the case from fading away as holidays, snow and new mysteries take center stage in this fast-moving city.

“We do whatever we have to do — going through Dumpsters, looking in the water, looking in the bushes,” Avonte’s mother, Vanessa Fontaine, said on Day 80 of the search as she sat in the tiny, L-shaped office she is renting to serve as the search headquarters. “This is like something from a nightmare, and I wish I could wake up.”

As she spoke, a volunteer named Elizabeth was preparing to head into the chilly afternoon to post more fliers. Another volunteer sat at a table stuffing envelopes with “Missing” leaflets to be sent across the city. The reward for information leading to Avonte’s safe return now stands at $95,000, most of it from anonymous donors.

Ever since Avonte, who is nonverbal, vanished, Fontaine has been the public face of the search effort, putting everything on hold, including her job as a social services case manager as well as Christmas.

“There won’t be a Christmas without Avonte,” she said. “I won’t have one.”

Fontaine has appeared on local and national television to talk about Avonte, the baby of a family that includes four brothers, ages 19 to 29. She has attended candlelight vigils and rallies. She has met with personalities, including Yankees star Alex Rodriguez and activist Al Sharpton, to spread the word about the search. She has even had her voice broadcast through speakers in the city’s massive subway system in hopes it will spark a reaction from her son, who loves riding the trains.

At times, Fontaine has had her hopes dashed when tips — there have been hundreds — do not pan out, as occurred in late October when someone snapped a picture of a slender boy sitting silently on a subway train. The resemblance to Avonte was uncanny, but it was not him. In fact, not a trace of Avonte has been found since he left school that day about 12:40 p.m.

Fontaine has filed a lawsuit against the city’s Board of Education, alleging staff at her son’s school failed to properly supervise him, even though he was enrolled in a program for special-needs children. The Department of Education said in an email that it could not comment on pending litigation.

For the first two months, Fontaine ran the search headquarters from a donated RV parked near Avonte’s school. Volunteers poured in, including vacationers who heard about Avonte while visiting New York and wanted to help. News crews regularly broadcast live from the site.

When the weather turned cold and the holidays neared, attention waned but has never ceased. Fontaine speaks regularly to local news outlets. On weekends, volunteers report to the new search headquarters in Queens to pick up more fliers. Sometimes a few show up; sometimes just one appears.

On the Saturday before Christmas, that one was Marilyn Vasquez, who comes nearly every weekend from her Brooklyn home to pick up fliers. On this day, she went to Manhattan hoping that someone among the hordes of tourists and shoppers would recognize Avonte.

“He can’t defend himself. That’s why it affects me,” said Vasquez, who was driven to volunteer because one of her sons has autism. Even before Avonte disappeared, she said, she worried for her son’s safety when they were not together. “It worries me more now,” said Vasquez as she worked her way through the crowd.

“Ah, I hope they find him,” one man said as she taped a leaflet to the side of a mailbox in Greenwich Village. Most passersby, though, were oblivious to the effort as they gazed in shop windows or jostled for space on the sidewalks.

That did not discourage Vasquez, who, like Fontaine, noted that other children missing far longer than Avonte have turned up. There were the three young women held by Ariel Castro in his Cleveland home for up to 11 years, who broke free in May. There was Elizabeth Smart, who was missing from her Utah home for nine months before being found. There was Carlina White, abducted from a New York hospital in 1987 and reunited with her birth mother 23 years later.

“There’s more and more of these,” said Robert Hoever, director of special programs in the Missing Children Division of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, noting that surveillance cameras and social media made it easier to get the word out. The video of Avonte dashing from school has been replayed countless times in New York and is available online.

In addition, DNA analysis has made it easier to confirm identities of missing children, some of whom, like White, have recognized themselves on the center’s website years after their abductions and alerted authorities.

“That gives families hope,” Hoever said. “They realize you can’t give up. We have to keep looking for these kids.”

Avonte’s case has struck a nerve in the public because of his autism, Hoever said. “That really elevates the criticality of the case. It creates a situation where people need to search harder.”

Fontaine is convinced her son was abducted and is being held captive. Nothing else makes sense, she said, given all the surveillance cameras.

“Who can disappear in New York City with all these cameras?” she said.

Vasquez agreed and said she would return next weekend to post more fliers.

tina.susman@latimes.com