David "D.J." Creato Jr. is accused of killing his son, Brendan, 3, to save his romantic relationship.
CAMDEN -- A longtime detective who has investigated homicides and other grisly crimes had to work hard to stop tears from running down his face as he described removing the body of Brendan Creato, 3, from a stream in Haddon Township.
Detective John Ellis was the second police officer to cry while testifying in the murder trial of David "D.J." Creato Jr., 23. He is accused of killing his son because his teenage girlfriend didn't like that he was a dad.
Creato, who denies the charges, told police that he woke up Oct. 13, 2015 to find his son missing from his apartment. It is roughly three-quarters of a mile from where Brendan's body was found, on a rock in a stream in Cooper River Park.
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A dog tracked Brendan's scent up Cooper Street to Cooper River Park, and then to a small stream off the river. Like his colleague, Detective Nicholas Villano, Ellis testified Tuesday that he noticed upon seeing Brendan's body that his pajama pants waistband was rolled in as if someone had used it as a grip.
"It appeared as though he was laid there," Ellis said. The fact that the boy's palms were up though he was lying facedown also seemed "unnatural," Ellis said.
He also noted that the boy's socks were clean, which would be very unlikely if he had walked from the apartment.
It was when Assistant Prosecutor Christine Shah asked him to describe taking Brendan out of the water that Ellis began to fight back tears.
"I lifted him up and handed him to Detective Villano," he said, miming the motion with a tissue in one hand.
He said Villano placed him in the body bag and Ellis carried him by himself to a nearby police vehicle. He held the body bag while another officer drove them to where they would meet an investigator from the medical examiner's office.
"He was on my lap," Ellis said with some effort. The investigator, Frank Jackson, took the body to the morgue, Ellis said.
Creato suggested spirits drew son to stream
Some have questioned why Brendan's body was removed from the stream so quickly. Ellis said they did it, under Jackson's direction, to preserve evidence and to reduce the chance that anyone in the media would spot the boy's body.
Also testifying Tuesday was Julia Stensky, 19, Creato's ex-girlfriend, and Jay Reinert, a neighbor who helped search for Brendan after he was reported missing.
Reinert said he decided to walk through the woods on the other side of the stream and was coming down the hill when he saw a police officer standing over the body of a boy.
He asked the officer if it was the boy they were searching for -- something he acknowledged on the stand was a "silly" question in hindsight.
"It was something I was not prepared to see," he said.
The officer, Delaware River Port Authority Sgt. John Quigley, testified last week about discovering Brendan's body and then telling a searcher nearby to leave the area.
His colleague, DRPA K9 Officer Constance Nicholson, testified last week about how her dog tracked Brendan's scent from Creato's apartment, up Cooper Street and into Cooper River Park. She also wept as she described seeing Brendan in the water.
Creato did not appear to react as Ellis testified about his son's body Tuesday.
The trial is expected to last until the end of May.
Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.