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Brendan Creato’s last night alive recalled at South Jersey murder trial

The 3-year-old’s aunt gave him a piggy-back ride to his father’s apartment, where Brendan was last seen. The father is now charged with murder.

Lisa Creato, on the stand Tuesday, is questioned by Assistant Prosecutor Christine Shah during the trial at the Camden County Courthouse. Lisa Creato is the mother of David "D.J." Creato Jr., the Haddon Township man charged with killing his 3-year-old son, Brendan.
Lisa Creato, on the stand Tuesday, is questioned by Assistant Prosecutor Christine Shah during the trial at the Camden County Courthouse. Lisa Creato is the mother of David "D.J." Creato Jr., the Haddon Township man charged with killing his 3-year-old son, Brendan.Read moreJESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff photographer

When David "D.J." Creato Jr. called his mother, Lisa, around 6 a.m. on a morning in October 2015 and said he couldn't find his 3-year-old son, she jumped from bed, screamed to her husband that the baby was missing, and ran several blocks to her son's apartment.

When she arrived, she said, she saw her son running outside the corner of the Haddon Township apartment in a panic.

She told him to call 911, which he did.

Lisa Creato recalled those details Tuesday when she testified in Superior Court in Camden, where David Creato is on trial, accused of murder. Prosecutors have said Creato, 23, killed his son, Brendan, to stop his girlfriend from leaving him, and initially made it appear as if Brendan had disappeared on his own.

Lisa Creato choked up as she reviewed pictures of Brendan's pajamas — a shirt that said "SLEEP ALL NITE" and pants with basketballs on them — which he was wearing when he disappeared Oct. 13, 2015, from his father's apartment.

The night prior, at Lisa Creato's house, Brendan's aunt, Sarah, had given him a bath and helped dress him in the pajamas and his Mickey Mouse slippers. The family packed clothes for Brendan for school the next day.

Sarah Creato then gave a Brendan a piggyback ride as she and Lisa walked about 10 minutes down Virginia Avenue to his father's apartment. Brendan said he was cold, so Lisa put a jacket on him. It was about 8 p.m.

Lisa Creato told the court they spent about 30 minutes in her son's apartment, where Sarah and Brendan watched videos on her iPhone. Lisa said she then left with Sarah.

She said that she did not lock David Creato's second-floor apartment door but that she did lock the knob on the first-floor door to the building. She said she had been able to pick the knob open with a screwdriver in the past. The door also had a deadbolt, but she didn't lock it because she didn't have a key, she said.

Brendan was afraid of the dark, and Lisa said she left a nightlight on if he slept at her house, which she shares with her husband, David Sr., and Sarah.

Lisa Creato said she had reprimanded Brendan for sometimes walking alone into the home's fenced-in backyard, where he had toys, but said he never did it at night.

On the first day of the trial last week, prosecutors said David Creato told Brendan's mother that he believed spirits had drawn the boy to the woods near South Park Drive and Cooper Street, about three-quarters of a mile from his apartment.

Creato's attorney, Richard J. Fuschino Jr., did not mention the claim while questioning Lisa Creato on Tuesday, but he did ask whether she was spiritual.

"I'm spiritual, I pray, I meditate," Lisa Creato said. She said she goes to psychics and believes in spirits.

Connie Nicholson, the Delaware River Port Authority police K-9 officer whose German shepherd, Kauen, tracked Brendan's scent — using his Mickey Mouse slipper -- said Kauen first walked several blocks but could find no evidence of Brendan, so she gave the dog a break and then they tried again.

Kauen then guided Nicholson from the area of Creato's apartment to the woods, breathing heavily and pulling harder as they neared a narrow downhill trail that extends toward a creek near the Cooper River.

Nicholson, wearing her police uniform, grabbed a tissue and tried to hold back tears when Assistant Prosecutor Christine Shah asked what she saw shortly after arriving there.

"A small child," Nicholson said quietly.

During a break from testimony, David Creato Sr. approached Nicholson and said, "I just wanted to thank you for your service." She nodded in acknowledgment.

A crime-scene investigator found two stains on the apartment's bathroom floor that tested positive for blood, but it belonged to David Jr., not Brendan, according to testimony from Camden County Prosecutor's Office Detective Joe Gurcik. "It was dried," he said.

Judge John T. Kelley said that jurors would visit the area where Brendan's body was found but that he did not have a specific date for it. He said jurors would receive notice the day prior.

The trial is expected to last through May.