BALDWIN PARK, CA (KCAL/KCBS/CNN) - A young boy's mother is heartbroken, and his father is in police custody, awaiting extradition from Nevada to California.
Hope has greatly diminished for the safe return of 5-year-old Aramazd Andressian Jr., known as Piqui to his family.
The child, missing for two months, is feared dead.
On Friday, the LA County Sheriff's Department, along with police in Las Vegas, arrested the boy's father, Aramazd Andressian Sr., for murder.
The prosecutor in the case says a body hadn't been found, but circumstantial evidence has led to successful prosecutions in similar cases.
The father's latest booking photo is very different from what he looked like when his son first disappeared.
Detectives believe he was making plans to flee the country.
Andressian was supposed to drop off Piqui with his mom on April 22 because they had split custody following a bitter divorce, which detectives say was the motive for murder.
After the boy's disappearance, the boy's mother, Ana Estevez, fanned across southern California to hand out flyers to help find her son while, detectives say, the boy's father spent 47 days in Las Vegas, socializing.
Estevez released a statement through the lead detective in the investigation, Detective Louie Aguilera of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department: "My heart is shattered. I cannot imagine emptiness and the void I will bear until we are together again some day."
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