Search continues for toddler after Amber Alert canceled

Sodus, N.Y. (AP) — Crews continued to search Tuesday for a missing toddler whose mother was found buried on an upstate New York farm, as the woman’s boyfriend appeared in court on a related charge.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers have spent days scouring the town of Sodus farm where Selena Hidalgo-Calderon worked and where her decomposing body was found May 23 between two logs and covered with soil and branches. Authorities have not said how the 18-year-old Guatemala native died.

Wayne County Sheriff Barry Virts said the search for 14-month-old Owen Hidalgo-Calderon would continue as long as necessary, despite a state police decision Tuesday to cancel an Amber Alert that was issued May 25. The boy and his mother were last seen alive May 16.

Virts said the alert was canceled administratively after a review of the criteria.

Selena Hidalgo-Calderon’s 25-year-old boyfriend was arrested last week after a hunter’s trail camera recorded him going in and out of the woods with a shovel. Everado Donoteo-Reyes, also known as Ebavardo Gutierrez-Reyes, has admitted to burying the woman — but not killing her, Virts said.

Donoteo-Reyes, a farm worker, appeared Tuesday in Sodus Town Court on an evidence tampering charge. He was represented by public defender Andrew Correia, who declined to comment except to say that Reyes waived a preliminary hearing. A grand jury will hear the case.

Donoteo-Reyes is from Mexico and is in the United States illegally, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement. He was removed from the country in 2016 and again in 2017 following a federal conviction for illegal entry, the agency said.

Donoteo-Reyes, who is not Owen’s father, was being held on $25,000 bail in the Wayne County Jail.