Valrico - As night set in Saturday so did a grim reality for hundreds of volunteers in Valrico; their candles a sign the search for two-year-old Luis Ramirez is now over.
"I didn't sleep all night wondering where he could possibly be," offered Rosalina Ramirez, Luis' mother in Spanish.
Ramirez says Friday afternoon she and her husband reported Luis missing.
She says she was inside feeding her two-month-old daughter.
She says her husband was outside watching the boy.
The boy's father says he took his eyes off Luis for just a moment and then he was gone.
Hillsborough County deputies launched an all out search Friday afternoon.
Armed with maps and pictures of the toddler, Saturday morning volunteers pitched in.
They walked the streets looking for any sign of Luis covering a radius of a mile and a half.
But that afternoon just 100 yards from the family's home, detectives made a gruesome discovery.
Sheriff David Gee made the announcement in front of hundreds of volunteers who were audibly upset.
"We believe we have the body of the small child in the hole," explained Sheriff David Gee.
Detectives say the hole is drainage for a septic tank. They say the plug for the tank has been missing for some time and the hole was now covered by grass.
Volunteers grief stricken by the news, wondered if they passed right over the spot.
"My heart goes out to the family and I can't imagine this little boy just being by himself and out in the cold and stuff," according to volunteer Clarice Frye
Ramirez says she thinks Luis may have been running towards the ice cream truck when he fell, but no one saw it happen.
Now Ramirez, her husband and hundreds of strangers are struggling to make sense of how a two-year-old boy could die such a senseless death.
Sheriff Gee says detectives are now looking into why the hole was uncovered and who's fault that might be.
They hope to have those answers in the next few days.
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