Remains in East River, N.Y., may be those of missing autistic boy

A shoe and a pair of jeans discovered with human remains in the frigid East River are similar to those worn by a 14-year-old boy whose disappearance in October mystified the city and sparked a massive, months-long search, the family’s attorney said Friday.

Police were using DNA from relatives of Avonte Oquendo to see if it matched DNA collected from the bones discovered Thursday night in the College Point area of Queens, N.Y. A teenager walking along the rocky shore spotted a human arm, and police later found legs and some clothing.

The remains were very badly decomposed, but pants and a shoe were the same size and style as those Avonte wore when he ran out of his school on Oct. 4, the family’s attorney, David H. Perecman, said. He called the similarities “troubling things to hear,” but added that Avonte’s mother, Vanessa Fontaine, remained stoic.

“She doesn’t seem to me to have ever lost hope,” Perecman said of Fontaine. “This morning when I spoke to her, she just said, ‘You know, it’s not Avonte until it’s Avonte.’”

Scores of people vanish in New York City each year; in the past week, the police department has alerted the media to more than a dozen missing person reports. Most of the people eventually are found, and few of the cases generate much interest in a city of more than 8 million people.

Avonte’s case was unusual because of his severe autism and because he was allowed to run out the door of his school past security guards--a dash captured on surveillance video and played countless times on local news channels as the search ground on.

Avonte does not speak, which underscored his vulnerability. His mother and other family members spearheaded a city-wide search effort that drew national attention. To this day, fliers showing Avonte’s face and offering reward money are posted on lamp posts, in subway stations, and on flat surfaces across the five boroughs.

Perecman said Avonte is afraid of water, so the family would have been surprised if he had climbed over the fences alongside the East River, which is across the street from his school. Initially, the search focused on the subways, because the teenager is known to be comfortable around trains.

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tina.susman@latimes.com