Search Widens for Missing Maryland Child (438 hits)
Less than a week after his stepfather was arrested and charged in the murder of his mother, officials have intensified their search for 11-year-old William McQuain. Dozens of law enforcement officers and volunteers searched two heavily wooded parks in northern Montgomery County, Maryland Sunday using horses and cadaver-sniffing dogs. The search was allegedly prompted by a tip that the boy’s body might be there, but it turned up nothing.
McQuain, a sixth-grader at Martin Luther King Middle School in Germantown, Maryland, has been missing for more than two weeks. It is unclear whether or not McQuain’s school followed protocol and involved guidance counselors after he had been away from school for four consecutive days. And McQuain, who played multiple sports, has not been present at any sports practices.
Neighbors say mother and son were almost inseparable. “They were like two peas in a pod,” an unidentified neighbor told WBAL-TV, Baltimore’s NBC affiliate. “You see mother, you see son. Every time she’d go somewhere, he’d go somewhere.” According to police, Jane McQuain, 51, was murdered within the last two weeks, and investigators found her body in her Germantown apartment last Wednesday night. She had been beaten and stabbed, according to police. An Amber Alert was issued for the missing boy the next morning.
Based on the Amber Alert information, McQuain's mother’s SUV was discovered at an Econo Lodge in Charlotte, N.C. last Thursday morning. About an hour later, her estranged husband, Curtis Lopez, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Authorities had hoped the boy would be with his stepfather, but unfortunately, McQuain was no where to be found. He was last seen at his mother’s home on Friday, Sept. 30.
The Washington Post reports that Lopez has a history of violence, according to court records. In 1987, he was convicted of stabbing a man and leaving him on a Pennsylvania highway to die. However, the man survived, and Lopez was convicted of attempted murder and served a long prison sentence. The Post also reports that a neighbor claims a man fitting Lopez’s description was seen going in and out of Jane McQuain’s apartment the first week of October. And a longtime friend of the slain woman, who claims he spoke with her before she went missing, says she was fearful of Lopez and was afraid he might hurt her.
He was scheduled to appear in a North Carolina courtroom Monday. According to the Amber Alert website, William McQuain is five feet tall and about 85 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information on his location is urged to call police at (301) 279-8000.
