911 call reporting New Braunfels baby missing released 8 years into investigation
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas - More than eight years after an 18-month-old boy disappeared, New Braunfels police have released the family's 911 call reporting him missing.
The 911 call came to light after a podcast that takes a look at missing persons cases, The Vanished Podcast, obtained it from New Braunfels police and released it on its episode about Joshua Davis Jr. on May 12.
Police have been searching for Joshua Davis, Jr. since that call came in on February 4, 2011.
“My grandson is missing. He's about 16-18 months. We can't find him anywhere," Jerome Davis can be heard telling police on the 911 recording.
It was a cold February night when New Braunfels police answered the call from the Savannah Hill Circle home where baby Joshua Davis lived. Police said snow and ice covered the ground, but even the weather couldn't compare to the chilling news that baby Josh was gone.
"We've been looking for him for about 20 minutes," Jerome said that night.
"Okay, I'm going to send someone in that direction. Keep looking for him. If you find him, give us a ring back," the officer responded.
More than eight years later, no one has located the missing child.
“This is something you don't recover from, especially here eight years later. We missed out on his whole life because somebody decided that they had other plans,” said Natalie Vargas, Josh’s grandmother.
Police said they still stand by the statements made on the fifth anniversary of baby Josh's disappearance.
"Every person that was inside the house the night of Joshua's disappearance has been interviewed multiple times. So, at this point, again, we believe that the family and those that were in the house that night have not been fully truthful with the information about the events that night. And we're asking them to search deep within their hearts," David Ferguson with the New Braunfels Police Department said in 2016.
Detectives said an abduction or the possibility that Josh simply left on his own have been ruled out. Instead, their lengthy ongoing investigation leads them to believe the baby was injured and removed from the home. The chance that he is still alive is slim, said detectives.
“Maybe God is guarding my heart, but I just don't feel that he's deceased. I just think and I feel that somebody has him somewhere,” Vargas said.
One thing that made the missing person's report seem suspicious to investigators is what happened in the 20 minutes before the child's grandfather called 911.
"The investigation showed that drugs were present at the home at the time, but then there was also an effort to clean up those drugs,” Ferguson said.
“If you have evidence there was drugs there, why wasn't anybody arrested?” asked Vargas.
Something both the police and Josh's family agree on is that it's beyond time to solve the case.
“I'm hoping and praying that Joshua comes home,” Vargas said. "At the end of the day, to me, no news is good news, because that's one more day that they have not found something and there's nobody knocking at my door."
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released a photo of what Joshua may look like today.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call New Braunfels police at 830-221-4100 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 830-620-TIPS.