California child, kidnapper believed dead

PATTERSON, Calif., Feb. 1 (UPI) -- A child's body pulled from an irrigation canal in California Tuesday was likely Juliani Cardenas, a 4-year-old allegedly kidnapped in January, a sheriff said.

A utility crew reported finding the body in the Delta-Mendota Canal near the Northern California town of Santa Nella, about 30 miles downstream from where the submerged car believed used in the abduction was recovered last week.

"The physical condition (of the body) and the clothing match those of our missing child," Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson told a news conference in Patterson, the farming community where Juliani was allegedly grabbed by Jose Rodriguez, the ex-boyfriend of Juliani's mother.

Rodriguez has not been seen since he allegedly sped off in a silver Toyota with the boy Jan. 18. But Christianson said investigators strongly suspected he, too, perished after witnesses saw the car plunge into the murky canal.

"Everything has led us to that canal and we knew it would be a tragic event," Christianson said.

The sheriff said that while the case was still being handled as a homicide, he did not believe Rodriguez was on the run because he did not have the financial resources to live on the lam.