Buried in the Playground: Who Is 'Baby Justice'?

May 19, 2009— -- It looked like a discarded shoe in the sand.

But when an Albuquerque, N.M., mother pulled up on the pint-size sneaker, she made a gruesome discovery -- a little boy buried in the playground sand underneath the swings.

Four days later, police still have no leads on who that little boy is or who buried him in the sand at Alvarado Park.

It's a mystery that has gripped the entire city. Residents have been calling police just to report that they drove by the park that day. Others have donated money to pay for a proper funeral for the child dubbed "Baby Justice" and "Baby Angel." More than $4,000 have been collected so far.

Albuquerque Police Officer Nadine Hamby told ABCNews.com that, based a preliminary, partial autopsy, the child was either 3 or 4 years old, weighed 38 pounds, was 38 inches tall and was of either American Indian or Hispanic descent.

He had no visible scars and had quarter-inch length brown hair and brown eyes. Other than the tiny black Skechers sneakers, the little boy was wearing black jogging pants and a red T-shirt with a picture of a monster truck.

There are no children matching his description reported missing in the area, Hamby said, leading police to believe that whoever buried him in the sand is either his caretaker or otherwise close to him.

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"And that's why they believe no one has reported the child missing yet," she said. "We have received numerous tips, which has been absolutely wonderful."

Albuquerque police, she said, are working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to develop a composite sketch of what the boy may have looked like.

Hamby said a local mother -- whose name has not yet been released -- was at Alvarado Park with her two children. As one of her children was playing on the swings, the back-and-forth motion disturbed the sand underneath, revealing a tiny black Skecher sneaker with gray and lime-green designs on it.

Hamby said the woman grabbed the sneaker to move it out of the way, figuring another child had left it behind, "and sees that it's connected to a leg -- at least an ankle."

Hamby said the mother dropped the foot and called police, who unearthed the rest of the body. The medical examiner, she said, determined the boy had been underneath the playground for no more than 48 hours.