The body of the missing three-year-old Massachusetts boy, Harry Kkonde, who vanished from his babysitter's home, was discovered on Wednesday afternoon in a pond, authorities report. The boy has been missing since Tuesday morning.
The body was found in a pond at a Christmas tree farm 650 feet from the babysitter's home in Lowell, the Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said at a news conference. The police found no signs of trauma in the boy's body and no sign of foul play, ABC News reports.
A parent's worst nightmare
Ryan announced that finding the toddler was every parent's worst nightmare - a child who disappears for a very short period, hours of excruciating search, followed by the recovery of a child's body.
Harry was last seen wearing a long-sleeve maroon shirt and gray pants with a white stripe, the police said.
The child's parents dropped the child at his babysitter's house at about 7 A.M. on Tuesday. A neighbor said they saw the child playing in the babysitter's backyard around 9:15 AM.
According to the police, it was the fifth time the babysitter had looked after Harry. The babysitter also quickly began searching for Harry and asked the neighbor's help to search for the child before calling the police.
Authorities also believe that Harry walked out of the babysitter's house on his own. The babysitter was also watching one other child at the time.
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The intensive search involved around 200 law enforcement officers, including K-9 units, divers, drone operators, helicopter crews, and officers on horseback and all-terrain vehicles.
Authorities also brought in marine units and aerial and ground thermal imaging to help search. The search team also covered wetlands and swamps as of Wednesday, The Independent reports.
Boy found at last
When police got a call about a missing child, officers went to the babysitter's home in the Pawtucketville section of northwest Lowell and began searching the neighborhood. When they found no sign of the boy, they moved the search to the nearby Lowell-Dracut-Tyngsboro State Forest and the Merrimack River.
The State police found the boy in a pond at Ronald Perron's farm near the babysitter's home in Lowell.
Perron admitted that he was shocked. He never thought that they would find the kid in the pond. Authorities searched the pond on Tuesday, but they did not find Harry. The police re-checked the area a day later because the boy was believed to be on the move.
Police said that Harry was found in about five feet of water and was in the clothes he was last seen wearing. No signs of trauma were found on his body, CBS News reports.
Lowell Police Acting Superintendent Barry Golner said that investigators had found no evidence that suggested that the toddler's disappearance was foul play.
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