As the mystery of a missing mother from Staten Island continues to baffle investigators, a Delaware court ruled her 1-year-old baby will remain with a foster family indefinitely.
Michael DiGirolamo, who celebrates his 1st birthday next week, is doing fine in foster care, an official for the Delaware Attorney General's Family Services said during a court hearing Thursday. None of Michael's relatives were at the hearing, in which a judge formally ruled that he had been abandoned.
His mother, 27-year-old Amy Giordano, a Willowbrook native who moved to New Jersey less than two years ago, has been missing since June 7. That was a day before the child was found in the parking lot of a Newark, Del., hospital, a strange, hand-scribbled note put in his diaper. He was left there by the boy's married father, 32-year-old Rosario DiGirolamo, police said.
DiGirolamo then fled to Milan, Italy, on June 14. He was not on his scheduled return flight two weeks later, and authorities believe he may now be in Sicily.
DiGirolamo -- who lives in a large Monmouth County house with his wife and young son -- had a lengthy affair with Ms. Giordano. The two met about four years ago, while she was married and lived in Brooklyn, then continued their affair when Ms. Giordano left her husband and moved to an apartment in Annadale. Most recently, she was living with their son in an apartment in Hightstown, N.J., while DiGirolamo paid the rent.
Ms. Giordano was last seen six weeks ago, shopping for groceries with DiGirolamo and their child in East Windsor, N.J.
In hopes of learning her whereabouts, investigators have been sifting through what little clues were left behind, including DiGirolamo's car, found ditched on a Midland Beach street June 27. The car, a 1998 Lexus registered in his wife's name, yielded no evidence.
The Mercer County prosecutor's office in New Jersey has been reviewing some of the results of a second forensic examination of Ms. Giordano's apartment -- where investigators found small traces of blood and took several pieces of the plumbing. They don't expect to have a full report until at least the middle of next week, spokeswoman Casey DeBlasio said yesterday.
They have also sought help from the FBI and the international police organization, Interpol, to find DiGirolamo in Italy, where he has relatives. It is highly unlikely Italian authorities will cooperate with an extradition process, however, unless the charges escalate. Police in Palermo, the Sicilian capital, knew nothing about the case when contacted earlier in the week. The same was true at police headquarters in Rome.
"He's somebody that the law enforcement agencies in this case would like to talk to. But he's not charged with a federal crime," said Agent Sean Quinn, a spokesman at the FBI's Newark, N.J., office.
And the more time passes without a word from Ms. Giordano -- and without any indication she has begun life anew somewhere else -- the less likely she will be found alive, authorities fear.
Meanwhile, the courts in Delaware are moving to terminate parental rights for her and DiGirolamo, authorities there said. That petition could come later this summer.
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