A 3-year-old child from Wisconsin who went missing from home in the middle of the night was found dead the next morning.
The toddler has not been publicly identified. However, New London, Wisconsin police issued a missing persons post via Facebook on Monday, April 13, and shared a photo of the young boy. Authorities said that he was last seen near a middle school around midnight.
In the post, the boy was described as standing 3-foot and having brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing an orange Chicago Bears shirt and a diaper.
Police did not name the school where the child was last seen in their press release, though WLUK and WFRV reported that it was New London Middle School.
The young boy reportedly wandered about four blocks away from his family’s home after his dad checked on him around midnight, according to WLUK. Police were then contacted around 5 a.m. regarding his disappearance.
He was reportedly found in the Wolf River at 7:17 a.m. and was transported to ThedaCare-New London facility, where he was later pronounced dead, according to WFRV. It is not currently known how long the boy was in the water or how he got there.
The New London Police Department did not immediately respond to Us Weekly’s request for comment regarding the boy’s death.
John Faucher, who owns local store Johnny’s Little Shop of Bait, spoke to WSAW about the incident, explaining that he saw police activity near the river after an Amber Alert was issued for the boy.
“We saw drones. We saw lots of county squads, city squads,” Faucher told the outlet. “I think we had a lot of inter-agency support from other communities here in town. Being right here, so close to the middle school, there was a lot of that presence right here, right away in the morning. Before it even got light out, there were teams out looking.”
Faucher also said that there were recent flooding concerns near Wolf River, with water levels now above 10 feet. He added that the conditions on the river are not normal for this time of year, which has caused concern for nearby business owners.
“It hit up to 10.26 feet, which is getting pretty close to where we get really nervous,” Faucher said. “We’re sandbagging here, just because we know it probably could come back up.”
The current is strong and water levels are higher than normal due to the recent rain, according to Faucher.
“It doesn’t look dangerous, but this is [a] pretty dangerous current level for even healthy people,” he said. “Definitely don’t recommend being anywhere around it without life jackets. You can pinch your hands in docks and different things, and things appear slowly when they’re floating down towards you, but they come with pretty good momentum at 10,000 cubic feet per second.”
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