Candlelight vigil for Valrico toddler

VALRICO - Family and friends gathered Monday night to remember 2-year-old Luis Martinez, who died after wandering away and falling into an uncapped septic tank.

Dozens of candle lit up the scene near the septic tank the boy fell into, as mourners prayed for his family.

Earlier Monday, Hillsborough County detectives and code enforcement officers are checked the mobile home park, looking for any possible criminal aspects in his tragic death.

Investigators believe the toddler fell into a tank via a hole that was only covered by a thin layer of grass. So far, several other similar holes have turned up as they unearth the area around the tank.

Searchers spent the weekend, hoping against hope as each hour passed, until little Luis Martinez was found Saturday. He'd drowned, deputies say, after falling through an approximately one-foot square hole into a septic tank near where he'd last been seen playing.

A small army of code inspectors arrived at the Silver Lane Mobile Home Park bright and early Monday morning, and they found more problems: there two or three other places where sewage tanks were not properly covered.

Kenneth Winter, the man identified in state corporate papers as the manager of the trailer park, would not answer our questions.

"Was this hole reported to management before this happened?" I asked Winter, adding that "there is some conflicting information?"

"You know", Winter replied, "I'm not real comfortable talking to you guys."

Code inspectors say they have no record of any complaints about the missing septic tank covers, but the boy's parents say park management got the complaints.

"He says a report was made of the problem with the septic tank", father Juan Martinez said through an interpreter, "but nothing was done about it."

That's a key issue for investigators. We're told by legal experts that there could be criminal charges, if it can be proven that managers knew in advance that the hole was there for a child to fall through.

A sheriff's spokesman says everything is being looked at, from the parents, to whoever was watching the child, to the folks who had control of the property.