Authorities in Massachusetts found the body of a 3-year-old boy in shallow water one day after the toddler went missing from a Boston-area residence on Tuesday, officials confirmed on Wednesday.
Harry Kkonde was recovered by members of the state’s underwater recovery unit shortly after 1 p.m. in a pond not far from where he went missing, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a press release.
The boy was found by the diver’s team in about five feet of water, the district attorney said. There was no obvious external trauma to the body and he was fully clothed, she added.
The investigation into the incident is ongoing and first responders currently have no idea how Harry came to reach that pond and entered the water.
“This is obviously every parent’s worst nightmare, a child who disappears for a very short period of time, the excruciating hours of the search and then the recovery of his body,” Ryan said, the Boston Herald reported.
“This is clearly not the result that anyone over these many hours of search would have anticipated or wanted to have occur,” she added. “Our thoughts and hearts are with the family who lost this child.”
Harry’s disappearance prompted a massive multi-agency search that included more than 200 first responders. In total, they searched 4.7 square miles of land and water.
“Everybody who’s ever had a toddler is in terror of that toddler wandering off,” Ryan said. “I think, taking that to heart, so many people came out last night, either to help in the search, to offer support to the folks who were searching. … People were incredibly gracious and responsive.”
Officials previously searched the pond where Harry was found about two hours before the underwater recovery unit recovered the 3-year-old’s body, Ryan noted. The pond is located in the area of Rollie’s Farm in Lowell.
It is believed that Harry walked out of the home on his own after his parents dropped him off early on Tuesday. A neighbor had spotted the boy playing outside the residence at 9:15 a.m. that morning. Shortly after, the babysitter called 911 to report that he was nowhere to be found, Ryan said.
John Fisher, police chief of the Carlisle Police Department, said it was Harry’s fifth visit with the babysitter and that there was one other child at the location where he went missing, CBS News reported.
Police do not suspect foul play and did not issue an Amber Alert because they felt there was no reason to treat Harry’s disappearance as a crime, the police chief said, adding that the babysitter “called the police really quickly.”
