ORLANDO, Fla. _ Two young parents from Longwood are listed as missing in Buffalo, N.Y., after human remains were discovered in a burned vehicle and, hours later, the couple's 3-year-old son was found alone nearby, police said Tuesday.
Nicole Marie Mersed Plaud, 24, and Miguel Anthony Valentin-Colon, 31, and their friend Dhamyl Mirella Roman-Audiffred, 29, also from Central Florida, are missing, and the boy was placed with child protective services.
The child was found curled up asleep in a cardboard box for cats at about 8 a.m. Monday, not far from the charred vehicle, police said.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the case was still a missing persons investigation, police said.
Anyone with information is asked to call Buffalo Homicide Detectives at (716) 851-4466 or the Confidential TIPCALL Line at (716) 847-2255 (call or text).
"We have been in contact with the grandparents of the missing child," Buffalo police Capt. Jeff Rinaldo said during a news conference Tuesday.
The boy's grandparents flew to Buffalo from Florida and are helping detectives put the case together, Rinaldo said.
The woman who found the toddler outside her home, Lois Augsburger, told WIVB that he was wearing only a pull-up diaper as he slept inside the cardboard box.
"I come out the door and I open this up and I just happened to look down and I see him starting to crawl out," she told the TV station.
Rinaldo said the boy, who was placed with child protective services, "is in good spirits" and will be reunited with his grandparents eventually.
Verifying the identity of the human remains in the vehicle, which was found behind a building in a warehouse area, will take "quite some time," Rinaldo said, adding that forensic anthropologists from the Erie County Medical Examiner's Office are working on it.
The boy is from Florida, and no one has reported a child missing, Rinaldo said.
