The Washington Post has an article by Sarah Larimer about a missing child, missing no longer:
The body of a child, which this week was discovered under the ice of a frozen Colorado pond, is that of a six-year-old who went missing days ago, authorities said.
“It is with a heavy heart that we have to report that we were notified by the Arapahoe County Coroner’s Office that the boy who was discovered in the icy pond in Olympic Park has been positively identified as David Puckett,” the Aurora Police Department said on Facebook.
The autopsy was performed Wednesday, police said. Officials didn’t find any “traumatic injuries” according to the Facebook post, and the cause and manner of Puckett’s death are still pending. An investigation remains open as authorities work “to determine the circumstance surrounding David’s death,” the Facebook post noted.
Officials located a child’s body in the pond earlier this week, but the remains were not immediately identified as six-year-old Puckett, who was thought to have wandered away from his home, according to the Aurora Police Department.
The city’s police chief told reporters that crews did find “the body of what appears to be a child inside the pond, underneath the ice”. “At this time, we are not able to give a definitive identification on that individual,” Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz said. “I will say, however, that because of this information, because of our suspicion, I had the unfortunate experience of having to inform David’s family of what we found.”
The pond where the body was discovered, and the area around it, was being treated as a crime scene, Metz said, though he could not say whether there were signs of foul play or whether this was simply a horrible accident. “That’s a really good question, but that’s why we’re going to treat it as a crime scene and that’s why we’re going to process it and make sure that we do everything humanly possible to get a good idea of what occurred,” Metz said.
David went missing on New Year’s Eve, according to Aurora police. Authorities were called to his home that evening, after his family had searched for the child for about an hour before contacting police.
The boy was thought to have strayed from his home; he had “wandered from his home in the recent past, and was located by citizens,” an Aurora police blog post on the case stated. David was wearing only a light jacket when he went missing, authorities said.
David’s mother issued a tearful plea at a news conference Sunday, describing her son as friendly and energetic, and asking for the public to help in the search:
“If you guys can, please help me find him. If you see him, please call the police immediately,” she said. “If, by any chance, you picked him up last night because it was New Year’s Eve and thought it would just be safe for him to pick him up, please just call. Please bring my baby home.”Rico says at least they found him...
More than a hundred members of the law enforcement community, including personnel from the FBI, the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children were involved in the search for David, according to police. Additionally, more than two hundred citizens were part of the effort.
Crews also used bloodhound dogs, one of whom alerted authorities to the pond. The bloodhound “expressed interest” in the pond, which is in a park, police said in a blog post. A fire-rescue team was deployed and located the child’s body.
Police said in the post that the area has been heavily searched before, and there was “never any evidence someone fell into the pond or through the ice”. “A lot of folks went around the pond,” Metz said. “There was no indication that there had been breakage of the ice. In fact, even the family members said that they had gone around and didn’t see anything. But again, when the dog hinted there, the divers went in.”
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