Vargas family happy to get ‘back to normal’
Ten-year-old warns other children not to follow his example
BY JOHN DUNPHY
Staff Writer

MIGUEL JUAREZ staff Manny Vargas, 10, had run away from his Sayreville home for three days last week, prompting an exhaustive search by emergency volunteers in and around the borough. He was released from the hospital over the weekend after being found underneath an enclosed patio in his neighborhood. Here, Manny sits in his kitchen with grandmother Patricia Simone and parents Dawn and Manuel Vargas.

All’s well that ends well.When it comes to 10-year-old Manny Vargas, never has a truer statement been written.

The Thompson Avenue boy was reported missing Oct. 17, prompting a massive search by hundreds of rescue workers and volunteers in and around the borough.

MIGUEL JUAREZ staff Ten-year-old Manny Vargas, who had been missing from his Sayreville home for three days last week, plays with toys in his living room yesterday afternoon.

Manny’s parents, Manuel and Dawn, drew widespread media coverage the next day by making a public plea for their son to come home. They said Manny feared being reprimanded after receiving a bad progress report from his fifth-grade teacher at Sayreville Upper Elementary School.

Late the evening of Oct. 19, Manny was found unconscious, but alive, underneath the enclosed patio of a residence near his home. Manny would spend the next few days recovering in a hospital, returning home over the weekend.

By Tuesday, Manny was feeling better,

he told Greater Media Newspapers.

The youth, who said he had been underneath the patio pretty much the entire time, recalled what was going through his head during those three days.

“I mostly thought about, When am I going to go back home? What am I going to do while I’m under here?” he said. “That was mostly it.”

With the exception of a sip of water from a nearby hose, Manny did not eat or drink the whole time.

“We told him there was no reason he should do that,” Dawn said. “This is totally out of character. But we’re just glad he’s home and he’s safe.”

The Vargas family’s story had a happy ending. But for some, the events of early last week brought back memories of local cases where the ending was not so bright.

On May 25, 1991, 5-year-old Timothy Wiltsey was reported missing by his family. He had been at a carnival in Kennedy Park on Washington Road when he disappeared. The following year, his skeletal remains were discovered in a meadow in Edison.

And nearly seven years ago, on Jan. 7, 1999, 17-year-old Nancy Noga was reported missing after leaving her part-time job at the Rag Shop store on Route 9 north in Old Bridge. She was later found dead in a wooded area behind a shopping center on Ernston Road.

The two cases remain the only unsolved murders in the borough.

Police Chief John Garbowski said, despite the common thread of a missing child and an effort by police to find them, there is a significant difference between those bleak moments in Sayreville’s history and the Manny Vargas case.

“When we have a runaway, they do eventually come back,” he said. “A runaway is not a common thing, but it’s not totally rare.”

Garbowski said the cases that police officers really fear are the ones when they do not know why the child left.

“You always get antsy, but my gut feelings were that he was near and we’d eventually find him,” he said. “But when there’s a situation where you don’t know why the child left, that’s when the time element really starts to grate on you.”

Dawn acknowledged the outcome of her son’s fate could have been far different.

“As each hour passes, as each night passes, you start thinking,” she said. “I didn’t know if someone took him.”

While Manny’s departure Oct. 17 had been the result of a progress report, his father said the stress had been building up well before that fateful night.

“His mother was in the hospital,” Manuel said. “She’d been admitted three or four times over the last three months. She had a lot of medical problems.”

He said the mounting tension from Dawn being sick and a resulting lack of parental supervision could have contributed to Manny’s decline in school achievement.

“With his mother being sick, me being at work or in the hospital, maybe he felt he didn’t have to do the work,” he said. “His grandparents were there, but we feel that’s where it started to get away from him.”

“I felt bad because I had a bad progress report,” Manny said. “I’d missed a lot of assignments.”

The 10-year-old said he’d missed seven homework assignments.

Now, with Manny back home and Dawn on the mend, things in the Vargas home have finally begun to settle down.

“I just want everything back to normal,” Manuel said. “We’re so happy he’s home.”

Manny, who was expected to return to school by the end of this week, said he was prepared for the expected onslaught of questions from his classmates.

“I’m looking forward to it, just to tell them not to do it,” he said. “I almost died out there. If you get a bad progress report, bring it home to your parents.”

Both Dawn and Manuel said they were extremely grateful for the efforts of all the volunteers who assisted in the search for their son.

“We want to make sure everyone knows how grateful we are,” Manuel said. “I want to thank everybody involved in the search.”

And that appreciation includes Lara, the 8-year-old German shepherd who ultimately discovered Manny under the patio.

“Especially the dog,” Dawn said. “That dog is an angel.”