MIDDLETOWN — Family, friends and church members gathered at Donna Trevino's Middletown home Monday afternoon, hoping to give some comfort to the mother who had just learned her missing 3-year-old son was dead.

Emotions vacillated from anger to pain to disbelief that Marcus Fiesel died after being locked in a closet by his foster parents. Then his little body was burned to cover up the crime, said Hamilton County authorities.

"How could anyone do something like this to a child," said Teri Cavolt, Trevino's friend who broke the news of the child's death to the mother after seeing a news report on a Cincinnati television news station. "I think they ought to do to them what they did to Marcus; I hate to say it, but that is how I feel."

Cavolt said Trevino sobbed and began shaking when she heard the gut-wrenching news. She said Trevino, as well as her boyfriend Harry Cowgill, are both in shock. They could not comment for the media.

Marcus was reported missing Aug. 15 from a suburban Cincinnati park by his foster mother, who collapsed due to an apparent medical condition. Three days later, the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office called off the near-continuous search for Marcus after search-and-rescue teams and thousands of volunteers combing the area failed to find any sign of the developmentally disabled boy.

Marcus' foster parents, Liz and David Carroll Jr., were charged Monday with involuntary manslaughter. Authorities say the couple locked Marcus in a closet Aug. 4 and then left to go to a family reunion in Williamsburg, Ky. When they returned, Marcus was dead. David Carroll Jr. is accused of burning the child's body in Brown County, and the news conference and public appeals for help were a hoax to cover up their crimes, authorities said.

"He was a wonderful child. ... full of life," said family friend Rebecca Wainscott, who said she chooses to remember Marcus running around hunting Easter eggs in her yard with other children no so long ago.

"It is just so hard to believe an adult could harm a child like this," she said. "This was a 3-year-old child."

The Rev. Don Shepherd, the pastor of Healing Word Assembly of God of which Trevino is a member, said she was still trying to sort through the news of her son's death.

"Just terribly, terribly sad," said Shepherd, who at the request of Trevino led an Aug. 19 prayer vigil at Jacot Park in Middletown for the safe return of Marcus. "He was a sweet, sweet, sweet boy."

Despite the difficulties Trevino faced due to her health in caring for three children, "Donna really did love that little boy."

Shepherd said he feels sure Trevino's other two children, who were taken from her home by Butler County Children Services, will be returned to her.

Cavolt and Wainscott said funeral services for Marcus had not been finalized on Monday afternoon, but any assistance with the cost of the burial would be appreciated.

"She (Trevino) does not have the money to pay for the funeral. You know, who ever thought we would have to bury a 3-year-old boy," Wainscott said.