Lakeville Dad Steven Cross Tearfully Says He Misses Son

Steven Alexander Cross was sullen, and at times tearful, on Monday while talking to reporters about how much he misses his son and the circumstances that led to .

Cross's trial was initially scheduled to begin today but was postponed until Tuesday morning after prosecutors entered a new piece of evidence today. The attorneys did not disclose the nature of the new evidence.  

"The most awful part about all of this is not being able to see or talk to (my son)," Cross said, choking back tears. "I've been back four months now and I can't even talk to him on the phone. Not even a phone call." 

, 60-year-old Cross is accused of abandoning his son and telling the 11-year-old boy to go to neighbors—John and Joanne Pahl of —after foreclosure took his home and cleared out his savings.

"The Pahl's are like (my son's) family. He was over there all the time for Christmases and holidays. He learned how to waterski with them and went to swimming lessons. He even had chores to do at their house," Cross said, trying to explain the closeness of the two families.  

Cross's son reportedly returned home on July 18 to find his father gone and only a pair of notes to explain his actions.  

"I wasn't going to bring him with me (to California) to be homeless. It would have been too dangerous," Cross said.

A qualified architect, Cross was arrested in Cambria, CA, last August living in his van and working a minimum wage job.

Cross also addressed the issue of his son's biological mother—Katik Porter—and why he conviced the boy she was dead for the first 11 years of his life.

"I know so many people who say terrible things about their husbands or wives. I made a parental decision to say only the nice things about her. There is plenty of (negative) stuff I could have told him about his mom," Cross said. 

Cross won full custody of the boy in 2002, when he was one-and-a-half years old.

After telling the boy his mother was alive in one of the notes left for him last July, Cross defended his actions by saying he planned to tell the boy himself once he turned a "more mature age."

"I told friends, teachers, the principal of his school and a school nurse his mother was alive. I wasn't a big secret," Cross said.  

Attorneys are scheduled to begin choosing a jury tomorrow morning and commence with witness testimony in the afternoon.