Vigils Held for Missing Maryland Boy Whose Mother Was Murdered

Oct. 15, 2011— -- Teammates, friends and neighbors of a missing Germantown, Md., boy whose mother was beaten to death held vigils Friday night, hoping that 11-year-old William McQuain will be found alive.

The boy has been missing since Sept. 30, and his mother, Jane McQuain, 51, was found Wednesday night, stabbed and beaten to death in their condominium.

McQuain's estranged husband was arrested and charged with her murder, but police have not been able to find William.

"I just want him to come home safe with no injuries," William's teammate Joey Lincoln said. "And if you know where you are please let him come home."

Outside Martin Luther King Middle School in Germantown, youth ministers, class mates and teachers gathered, candles in hand, to pray for the boy's safe return.

"As a mom of three little girls, I think it's very important since Jane has no voice anymore for William, that we be the voice for her and not let him just vanish," ministry leader Brandi Page said.

"I was telling my boys if they were missing I would want people to come out and do the same kind of thing, so I brought them out," church member Darren Petrie said.

Even though Curtis Maurice Lopez, Jane McQuain's estranged husband, was arrested in Charlotte, N.C., just hours after the woman's body was found, police said they still have no clear leads in their search for William McQuain.

The last possible sightings of the 11-year-old, who is described as a light-skinned, bi-racial boy, about five feet tall and 85 pounds, were the weekend of Oct. 1-2, police said.

Neighbors who told police they had "possibly seen him in some activity ... after that weekend, sightings like that dropped off," Montgomery County Police Department spokesman Capt. Paul Starks said.

Officials at Martin Luther King Elementary School, where William is a sixth-grader, said he attended and left school on Friday, Sept. 30.

Lopez, 45, was arrested Thursday at a Charlotte, N.C., Econolodge and charged with first-degree murder of his extranged wife, Jane McQuain "on the strength of a Maryland warrant," said Starks, adding that Lopez's arraignment hasn't been scheduled yet.

He was driving the vehicle owned by McQuain, William's mother.

"Our priority, our focus right now, is to locate William McQuain. We were hoping that we find him with Mr. Lopez, and we did not," Thomas Manger, Montgomery County police chief, told ABC's "20/20."

Lopez is an ex-felon, and had been incarcerated in Pennsylvania.