Community support helps parents cope with toddler's death

All day today, people came to pay their respects and say prayers at the memorial covered with dozens of candles and teddy bears in memory of 2-year-old Luis Martinez, who was found dead near his home Saturday.

They brought money, gift cards, food, a bassinet and microwave oven to help Luis' parents, Juan Martinez and his wife, Rosalina Ramirez.

Jesus Rodriguez, a pastor at a Spanish church in Seffner, showed up at the family's mobile home to offer a cash donation from his congregation and to pray with Luis' parents.

As Rodriguez prayed at the memorial, Martinez and Ramirez cried and tried to come to terms with the loss of their son, who was found inside a neighbor's septic tank.

About 3:30 p.m. Friday, Martinez was outside talking to a friend. Fifty feet or so away, Luis was playing outside a neighbor's mobile home with a 3-month-old boy being watched by a neighbor.

Ramirez, 20, said she asked her son to come home, but he wanted to keep playing.

Then the ice cream truck drove down Silver Lane, ringing a bell. The woman watching Luis and the other boy said Luis cried out that he wanted a treat, Martinez said.

The woman told Luis to go home, Martinez said. He believes the woman went inside with the 3-month-old boy, but Luis didn't return.

Instead, he ran around the mobile home next door and fell into an 11-inch opening for a septic tank, Martinez said.

"If it had had its cover, perhaps that wouldn't have happened," said Martinez, 30, wearing a light blue ribbon on the pocket of his gray T-shirt in memory of his son.

Authorities are trying to figure out what happened, too.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said Luis was often allowed to go about his neighborhood unsupervised.

"He had the run of the place," said Col. Greg Brown.

Brown said Luis had gone to the neighbor's house for ice cream.

Luis' parents initially thought someone had abducted him. Even after authorities arrived, the search-and-rescue dogs seemed to be following a trail on the street and passing over the septic tank on Friday.

The family moved in to the mobile home park on Silver Lane last month. They came from Michigan and usually spend October to May picking strawberries at a Dover farm, Martinez said.

The couple has worked in the area for the last three years. They were assigned to the mobile home and don't know the name of the property owner. Last year, they lived in one down the street, Martinez said.

Luis liked to play with the other children in the mobile home park and enjoyed biking around there, too, Martinez said. There are about a dozen mobile homes in the park, all close together. The property is fenced and on a dead-end, unpaved road.

Several people live in the mobile home next to the septic tank, Martinez said; the sheriff's office says it's vacant.

The couple, who have a 2-month-old daughter, Adelina Martinez, is overwhelmed and moved by the support they have received, especially from strangers.

"I've never witnessed this before," Martinez said. "I want to give many thanks to all."

About 400 volunteers from the community helped search for Luis, according to the sheriff's office.

Among them were Anthony Abramson, 37, and his friend, Brenda Heisler, 62. They joined in the search about 8 p.m. Friday and stayed until 3 a.m. They came back on Saturday, started a memorial a few feet from the septic tank Luis fell into and spent most of today accepting donations for the family and keeping an eye on the memorial.

"If anything happened local, I felt in my heart I couldn't sit around," said Abramson, of Valrico. "I would have to do something."

The hole and the area around it were covered with sand today.

The ground-level septic tank had a takeout plug about 11 inches in diameter that had probably been missing for several years, Sheriff David Gee said. Grass had grown over the opening, and it was very difficult to see.

"People are telling us that somebody had seen this hole about a month ago when the septic tank was overflowing at that point and that it was not taken care of at that time,'' Gee said.

The hole was 5 feet deep and full of raw sewage, Gee said. After Saturday's search turned to the septic tank, a company was called in to suction it, and Luis was found inside.

The sheriff said his office would investigate whether the owner of the septic tank had ample opportunity to fix it.

"It appears this plug had been taken out a long time ago, and unless you know it's there, it's very dangerous,'' he said.

Investigators will consider whether to hold anyone responsible for the open septic tank, said sheriff's office spokesman J.D. Callaway. First, detectives have to determine Luis' cause of death, he said.

A service for Luis is planned at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Nativity Catholic Church in Brandon. The family plans to return the boy's body to their home in Oaxaca, Mexico, Martinez said.