Almost 4-years ago, the seven-day rescue process for six-year-old Maddox Ritch, from North Carolina, completed in a miserable way and left the whole community in pain.
It all started when Maddox was out for a walk in the Rankin Lake Park in Gastonia, with his dad and his dad’s girlfriend on Sept 22, 2018.
Maddox and his dad were relishing and then Maddox ran away from his dad unexpectedly. The nonverbal child, who was on the autism spectrum, vanished from his dad’s sight in blinking of an eye. His father, Ian Ritch, was diabetic and had problem rushing after his son.
Instantly after the vanishing, a widespread hunt effort was thrown. Several law enforcements officers as well as search and rescue squads were in full swing for a week.
The traumatic situation also got the whole public on its feet and one and all sought to help out. Several leads were shared with the police.
The huge lake in Rankin Park was partly drained in an attempt to find the boy. The FBI offered $10,000 to someone who could help deliver info that would help bring Maddox back. Drones, search dogs and even infrared sonar expertise could not track down the missing boy.
Nearly six days of desperate probing, a breakthrough came when a body was discovered in a creek nearby a busy road. Sadly, it was turned out to be the missing young child.
At approximately 1 p.m. on September 27, 2018, search crews discovered a body believed to be Maddox Ritch off of…
Posted by Gastonia Police Department on Thursday, 27 September 2018
The site was in walking distance of where Maddox vanished. Some believed that Maddox had tumbled into the lake and drifted away. Several were also amazed that the police didn’t find the body before as he was within the search operation zone.
Police gave a press brief later and they clarified why finding the child had been so difficult. Officers said it was undeniably incredible that the boy was found. They said that even standing right next to him, he was nearly totally unseen.
The post-mortem exposed that the boy perhaps pass away due to drowning. He also had wounds on his neck, possibly because of by an animal attack.
An FBI agent who functioned on Maddox’s event understood that more information was required when a kid with autism gone missing. So, he established a single-page survey for investigators to be used when a kid with autism goes vanishing.
In this case, a Special FBI Agent decided to get out the whole thing he could about autism and autistic kids. He wrote establishments and collected all the material he could possibly can. This led to a specification being used instantly when an autistic kid gone missing.
The survey, which is only accessible to law enforcement, can expectantly help evade a similar disaster another time.
