New search fails to find missing boys

Boston Globe, January 5 2000
By Associated Press

PAWTUCKET, R.I. (AP) A two-day search for a 10-month old boy and his newborn cousin who disappeared from a Christian sect in Attleboro failed to turn up new evidence, an official said Wednesday.

State and local police from Pawtucket, Attleboro and Seekonk searched a wooded area in Pawtucket on Monday and Tuesday, after a man walking his dog discovered signs of recent digging and called police.

A spokesman for the Bristol County district attorney's office, Edward R. Sirois, said the search turned up no leads.

Authorities believe 10-month-old Samuel Robidoux died of malnutrition and his body was buried. They are also investigating whether his cousin,

Jeremiah Corneau, believed to be stillborn, was also buried.

The boys' parents are members of a strict Christian sect that rejects doctors, schools and outsiders. The group frequented a farmhouse in Seekonk about a half-mile from the site of the search.

Investigators have also searched the yard of an Attleboro property owned by members of the group, and parts of Baxter State Park in Maine, where group members vacationed in September. Neither search turned up evidence of the bodies.