Family of 5-year-old boy Prince McCree, found dead in a dumpster one day after he went missing, blasts Milwaukee police for refusing to issue Amber Alert because he “doesn’t qualify,” claiming “if this is a little white boy, more would have been done’
Relatives of a five-year-old child brutally murdered by a teenager and an adult accomplice are grappling with why authorities refused to issue an amber alert that could have saved their son.
Prince McCree was found “soaked in blood, bound and gagged in the fetal position” on October 26, just one day after his disappearance from a multi-family home.
Erik Mendoza, 15, and David Pietura, 27, are accused of beating and stabbing the little boy to death, then telling police they didn’t know where he was.
Police sent a “critically missing alert” to the media after Prince’s disappearance, but they did not issue an Amber Alert because the little boy “did not meet the criteria.”
Sen. LaToya Johnson of Wisconsin said family members are struggling to come to terms with the child’s horrific death and said she remembers them saying, “If this was a little white boy, more would be done.”
Prince McCree, 5, was found ‘blood-soaked, bound and gagged in the fetal position’ in a dumpster in Milwaukee
David Pietura, 27, (pictured) and Erik Mendoza, 15, have been charged in the death after being accused of taking turns hitting the boy with a golf club before dumping his body.
Critics – including Senator Johnson – are now wondering whether the criteria for Amber Alerts are too strict.
Wisconsin’s Amber Alert program requires the missing child to be 17 years of age or younger and in danger of serious bodily harm or death.
The state requires that “the initiating agency must have sufficient descriptive information about the child, the suspect, and/or the suspect vehicle to believe that an immediately issued alert will assist in locating the child,” the state said. DOJ website.
Johnson believes the Justice Department may have denied the Amber Alert request because there was no suspect description or suspected vehicle involved to include in the alert.
The senator – who lives close to the family – said: “This tragedy is simply horrific and sad in all proportions.
His family is having an extremely difficult time. They are having a hard time.
“I found out one wouldn’t be issued because he wasn’t eligible. That made me angry. Something is wrong when a five-year-old doesn’t qualify for an Amber Alert,” Johnson said.
Wisconsin residents have been calling for a reconsideration of Amber Alert requirements since the April 2022 disappearance of 10-year-old Lily Peters.
Lily was murdered and raped by her 14-year-old cousin Carson Peters-Berger in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
A Chippewa Falls resident – Eric Henry – started a petition after the tragic murder asking lawmakers to create a “Lily Alert” for cases that don’t exactly meet the requirements for an Amber Alert.
Henry said: “We can do better as a community and need to be more proactive. We need an alert with fewer rules around it, so that we can respond more quickly to missing children.’
The Justice Department has not revealed exactly why an Amber Alert was not issued the day Prince went missing.
Surveillance footage showed Pietura with a garbage bag believed to contain Prince’s remains
Police found Prince’s battered body near the home he and his family shared with several other people, including Pietura and Mendoza.
Court documents say the little boy’s mother last saw him on the morning of October 25. He was sick, so she kept him home from school.
The boy “wanted to go to the basement of the house to play video games,” which he regularly did with Pietura.
The mother assumed the boy was playing with the 27-year-old, but when she later checked the basement, it was dark and empty.
A detective searched the basement and saw “blood on the cement floor near carpet runners.”
Pietura, who was there at the time, immediately tried to move the tokens to cover the spots. He claimed that he and Mendoza had had an argument earlier and that blood was coming from Mendoza’s nose.
However, in the part of the basement that was Pietura’s bedroom, the detective observed “more suspicious blood on a white comforter covering a chair, and on a blanket used as a room divider.
“
Then another detective noticed “a large amount of blood on Pietura’s right leg. He was arrested for obstruction.
Authorities executed a search warrant with a K9 team.
The K9 “alerted to the odor of decomposition at the bottom of the basement stairs, where three sweatshirts were hanging on the back of a door.”
One of the sweatshirts was seen on surveillance video as Pietura carried the garbage bag containing the boy’s remains.
Police have recovered a butterfly knife that Mendoza, the homeowner’s son, used to stab three different people in a separate incident
McCree’s mother last saw him on the morning of October 25. He stayed home from school and went to the basement of their multi-family home to play video games with Pietura, who also lived there.
After police found several bloodstains in the bedroom, Pietura admitted that Mendoza “had been talking about wanting to kill someone for a while.”
The teen had “never liked” Prince and discussed wanting to kill the boy, the documents show.
Pietura also confessed to witnessing Mendoza strangle Prince in the bedroom until he was motionless.
“At no time did Defendant Pietura intervene to stop Defendant Mendoza,” the documents read, noting that he left the room at one point but returned shortly after.
When the child was motionless, Pietura said, “We have to clean it up.” Using thick black duct tape, he and Mendoza bound Prince’s hands and feet, the documents show.
They stuffed rags into Prince’s mouth and covered them with tape to muffle his screams in case he was still alive.
When Mendoza noticed the child regaining consciousness, he reportedly said, “We have to shut him up.”
Pietura hit the boy repeatedly in an attempt to silence him. When that didn’t help, Mendoza repeatedly stomped on his head.
When he “kept whining,” Pietura grabbed a 30-pound dumbbell and dropped it on the child’s head.
Believing him dead, Pietura and Mendoza placed his body in several garbage bags. When he started making noise again, the two took turns hitting him in the head with a golf club.
When Prince’s mother later checked the basement, the lights were off and it appeared empty
Pietura tried to cover up bloodstains on the ground, claiming he and Mendoza got ‘rough’ earlier, resulting in a nosebleed
Police recovered a black-handled butterfly knife, which Mendoza confirmed was used in three separate incidents.
When the teen was arrested, he denied hurting Prince “in any way.” He later admitted to strangling the child stabbing three other people the same day.
“Defendant Mendoza admitted that he was bored, went outside and stabbed the first victim in the back,” the complaint reads.
‘The suspect really wanted to stab someone, but felt bad after committing the stabbing.’
When asked what he would say to the stabbing victims, Mendoza reportedly said: “I’m sorry, but you’re still alive.”
The teen appeared at a juvenile court hearing on Oct. 31, where Prince’s father tearfully told him, “You did this to my baby. Erik, you broke us.”
Pietura and Mendoza are not allowed to contact each other or the victim’s family. They are charged with first-degree intentional homicide, repeated physical child abuse resulting in death and concealment of a corpse.
The 27 year old was scheduled for a preliminary hearing Monday, but he didn’t show up because he still doesn’t have a public defender.
Mendoza is expected to appear in juvenile court on November 28.