Joseph Lynch arrested for 1993 murder of Maryland boy George Burdynski, 10
A man has been arrested over the 1993 murder of 10-year-old George "Junior" Burdynski, who vanished in Brentwood, Maryland. Joseph Lynch, 61, was already in jail on sex abuse charges.
Arrest made after 30 years in disappearance of Maryland boy George Burdynski
More than three decades after 10-year-old George "Junior" Burdynski vanished while riding his bike in Brentwood, Maryland, a man has been charged with his murder, nbcwashington.com reports.
Joseph Lynch, 61, was arrested in connection with the killing of Burdynski, who went missing on 24 May 1993 and was never found. The FBI and Prince George's County police announced the arrest on Thursday, according to law enforcement sources who spoke to News4.
Lynch had already been in custody since May, held on charges of sex abuse of a minor, Maryland court records show.
Over the years following Burdynski's disappearance, the investigation led authorities to a network of men who had preyed on children in the Brentwood area. Lynch was identified as one of three men linked to a group of pedophiles, but police were unable at the time to connect him directly to Burdynski's disappearance. What new evidence prompted the arrest was not immediately disclosed.
Another man connected to the group, James Kowalski, was found to have given children money and gifts, the FBI said. Kowalski was sentenced to more than 250 years in prison but denied any involvement in Burdynski's case.
Burdynski was last seen on a small red bike, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. He would have been 44 years old today.
His father, George Burdynski Sr., spent years searching for answers. When Junior did not return home the evening he disappeared, his father took to the streets, called police, handed out flyers and pleaded publicly for information. Crews conducted searches, and members of the public reported possible sightings.
In a 2008 interview with News4's Pat Collins, 15 years after his son's disappearance, George Burdynski Sr. described the weight of not knowing.
"The hurt, the wonder, it's still there. Where's Junior?" he said.
"It's like you're stuck in 1993. It's hard to go on. You're here and waiting and waiting and, you know, it's just, it's hard," he added.
Asked what he would say to his son if he could, he answered through tears: "That I love him, wish that he'd come home, how much everybody's missed him."
The case is considered one of the most prominent missing child investigations in the Washington D.C. area in recent decades. In the early days of the internet, the search for Burdynski and the identification of child predators in the area led the FBI to establish a national programme to combat online child exploitation, the bureau has said.
Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)