The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward as it asks for the public's help finding a 6-year-old boy living with autism from Miami, Florida whom investigators believe is in Maine or Eastern Canada.
Jorge "Jo-Jo" Morales has been missing since August 27.
Police allege that Jo-Jo’s father, 44-year-old Jorge Morales, picked his son up from his mother’s home for visitation, then disappeared with Jo-Jo and 68-year-old Lilliam Peña Morales, who is Jorge’s mother and Jo-Jo’s paternal grandmother.
No one has seen them since, though investigators have said recently released surveillance video shows Jo-Jo and his father entering and exiting a Walgreens store in Houlton, Maine on August 29.
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The video follows the discovery of a GMC Yukon believed to be connected to the case near the Canadian border in Maine, along with police searches in the Maine woods, other police investigations in New Brunswick, Canada and a hunter in Maine discovering personal items that police believe are related to the case as well.
"I think they’re in that area somewhere," said Joe Carrillo, a Florida-based private investigator working with Jo-Jo’s mother, Yanet Concepcion to find her son, adding that both he and Jennifer Dorman, a Maine-based private investigator who is also working with Concepcion and Carrillo, are concerned about the impacts of colder weather on Jo-Jo.
Both Dorman and Carrillo say that searches they conducted with dogs suggest the family has crossed the border into Canada.
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"We’re just trying to get the word out and let hunters in the area know to be on the lookout for anybody with camps or cabins in eastern Canada," said Dorman.
"Unfortunately, the snow is going to be here soon and that’s going to cause some really big issues with this case," Dorman added.
According to the FBI, JoJo is three feet tall, weighs about 50 pounds and has brown eyes, and has brown hair.
Anyone who may have information about this case is asked to call the Miami FBI office, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children or their local FBI office.
If captured, both Jorge Morales and Lilliam Peña Morales face "custodial interference" charges.
