‘Whiz Kid’ Remains in Custody as Parents Feud

SANTA CRUZ —  Adragon De Mello, the 11-year-old “whiz kid” who graduated from UC Santa Cruz last June with a degree in mathematics, remained in the custody of Santa Cruz County’s Child Protective Services on Thursday after a detention hearing was continued until next Friday.

The boy was placed in the care of the child welfare agency Monday morning after police, serving a search warrant, kicked in a door at the home of his father, Agustin De Mello, 58.

In an affidavit requesting the search warrant, police detailed reports from Adragon’s mother, Cathy Gunn, 36, that Agustin De Mello had made a “suicide pact” with her son.

The affidavit also referred to alleged threatening remarks made to Gunn and UC Santa Cruz personnel, and stated that Gunn believed Adragon should attend junior high school rather than the Florida graduate school to which he had recently been accepted.

Police placed the elder De Mello in a Santa Cruz mental ward for psychiatric evaluation after he allegedly failed to cooperate with their search. Ten guns, as well as videotapes and examples of Adragon’s course work, were taken from the home.

Doctors at Dominican Hospital released the elder De Mello on Tuesday, but authorities immediately arrested him on suspicion of felony child endangerment and booked him into Santa Cruz County Jail. He was released the same day on $5,000 bail, posted by Paul Lee, a former UC Santa Cruz philosophy professor and one of several friends who have come forward in support of De Mello.

At Thursday’s hearing, De Mello was served with a temporary restraining order prohibiting him from contacting Gunn, who has filed a separate suit seeking to gain custody of the boy. The order also prevents the child from leaving the Bay Area, said Gunn’s attorney, Pat Vorreiter.

At a news conference Thursday afternoon, De Mello called the charges of a suicide pact “ridiculous.” Earlier he said that the alleged threats were “made for effect.”

De Mello said his son may be “the most intelligent child so far found in this world.”

The father said he hopes the courts will allow Adragon to follow his own wishes. He said the boy is “very excited” at being accepted into a graduate program at the Florida Institute of Technology. His reasons for wanting to go are “a toss-up between wanting to work on the Cray super-computer there, being close to the space program, and being close to Disney World,” De Mello said.

Arthur Danner, Santa Cruz County district attorney, said that an investigation is continuing into the child endangerment complaints and that experts in the field of child psychology would be consulted to determine whether “unjustifiable mental suffering” had occurred in Adragon De Mello’s remarkable rush through the university.

The boy was not available for comment. Gordon Salisbury, an attorney appointed to represent Adragon, said the boy was “doing just fine.”