Illinois Police Search For Missing 5-Year-Old Boy Turns Towards Parents

Police this week are intensifying their search efforts for a 5-year-old Illinois boy who was reported missing on Thursday.

Andrew Freud's last reported sighting was Wednesday night, when his parents say he went to bed at their home in Crystal Lake, which is about 45 miles northwest of Chicago. According to the parents, they didn’t realize he was missing until the next morning. Since then, the police have been working diligently to try and find him.

With the first few days turning up nothing, police are now taking a closer look at Andrew’s parents and home. K-9 teams from the Crystal Lake Police Department have searched the family home and found no evidence of Andrew leaving. The teams also picked up Andrew's scent in the trunk of his parents' car. These findings have been enough for police to say that Andrew didn’t wander off from home or was even abducted.

According to police, Andrew’s parents haven’t made the investigation much easier, either. His father, Andrew Freund Sr., had been fairly cooperative according to reports from police and has pleaded for his son’s safe return. JoAnn Cunningham, Andrew’s mother who is also seven months pregnant, has not been as cooperative with police as they search for her son.

"The fact that both parents have stopped cooperating with us certainly raises our suspicions," Crystal Lake Police Chief Jim Black told the Chicago Tribune.

This isn’t the first time Andrew’s parents have been under the microscope. Andrew Freund Sr. and JoAnn Cunningham have been in contact with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services since their son’s birth when opiates were found in his system. As a result of the findings, Andrew was taken into protective custody as a 1-month-old but was returned to his parents when he was 18 months old.