5-Year-Old Autistic Boy Found Dead In A Pond After Disappearing On Christmas

On December 25, 2019, i.e., on Christmas eve, 5-year-old Beau Belson, with autism, was reported missing from his grandmother's home in Six Lakes, Michigan, where he was last seen playing in the yard at about 2:30 p.m. After the Michigan State Police divers and hundreds of volunteers searched for the missing boy for nearly 24 hours through thick woods and mud, they found his body after noon on Thursday, under the ice about 50 feet away from his grandmother’s home.

Beau’s aunt, Brittany Knapp said that he had been playing outside with other relatives. “I mean, we were just having Christmas. The kids were playing,” she said. The fact that Beau was missing was realized when they all came inside. Unable to find him, they called the police.

When the news of Beau’s disappearance spread, volunteers came in droves to help the family, some coming from miles away with their own tracking dogs, others were helping the searchers by delivering food for them. They searched the woods, swamps, and lakes along with the police.

“It’s like seeing how many people walked hand-in-hand … trying to find him?” Knapp said. “It means a lot.”

“We had people from Blanchard, Lakeview, Pewamo, Remus, a lot of surrounding communities. People come out and stuck together, and it’s amazing,” said Stewart Buskirk, one of the volunteers. Everyone worked hard looking for a boy they didn’t even know, they looked for him for hours, searching all night, and fervently hoping that he was alright.

It was on Thursday, during the after noon hours, when a state police diver found the boy’s body under the ice in the frozen pond next to Beau’s grandma’s house. The pond was one of the first places that were searched on Wednesday, but the boy was never found.

“Unfortunately, I have some bad news to report,” MSP Lt. David Cope said. “We’re not sure if he just wandered into the water, fell in, we’re just not sure at this point.” As of now, the police is not sure about the cause of death and are awaiting an autopsy to determine the same.