'Tragic accident': 2 missing boys found dead in pond, chief says

All right. Good afternoon, everybody. We are here so that I can provide specific details on an extremely tragic incident that occurred over the weekend involving the drowning of two babies, the drowning of a five-year-old and a three-year-old. So we received the call 911 at 6.19 p.m. I kind of want to provide you guys the timeline of exactly how this occurred. So the mother, she's a single mother, she fed the children at about 11 a.m. They ate breakfast. She turned around and put out lunch for them at about 5 p.m. She then went to lay down to take a short nap. She woke up approximately 15 minutes later, and the kids as well as the family dog had gotten out of the apartment. She does have a child lock, child safety lock on the door, so apparently they figured out how to navigate that child safety lock, and they exited the apartment. So yesterday during follow-up, we actually located video, so we can actually see surveillance footage of these children as well as the family dog as they make their way to that retention pond and that footage is about 5:57 p.m. we could see them on surveillance footage playing in the area of the retention pond at 6:02 p.m. the older child becomes submerged in the water and then at 6:03 the younger child is submerged in the water. At 6:06 we can see mom now coming out searching the area and she calls for the dog because she could still see the dog. So there's about 22 minutes from the time mom gets down to the retention pond until she notifies us. So the sad reality is I can go over this timeline and I can give you every resource that we deployed in the time that we deployed those resources. But the sad reality is those children were already submerged under the water several minutes before we were even notified about this incident. Normally, I stand up here by myself, but it was important that I bring down the investigators. and this isn't all of them but this is uh my criminal investigation detectives who have been working tirelessly they worked from the time they got the call uh they came back sunday which is when we found that additional video which kind of showed exactly the time and where these children were um and they take this stuff home with them so i wanted them to be up here to let them know how much i appreciate them and their efforts all weekend long as well as the delta platoon because it was them uh that were working this weekend they're off the next couple of days but you know all of us that have children and even those that don't have children but especially parents this is your greatest nightmare to lose both of your children in that fashion um but i also want to commend the faculty and staff from Turi T. Small Elementary School, the five-year-old attended Turi T. Small Elementary. Several teachers, as well as the principal, came out. Once they realized what was happening, they participated in the search, and in my opinion, they went above and beyond their call of duty as educators because they're also a part of this community, this community that is grieving. We called out the dive team, which is through the Sheriff's Office, the Volusia Sheriff's Office. So I want to commend them for their very difficult and emotional job that they had to do in getting in that water and searching for hours and hours until finally locating both of those children. And I think there was maybe approximately an hour in between, you know, locating one from the other. It was approximately an hour in between. So just the emotional toll it takes on them as first responders in their very difficult job to get down there in that water and recover those kids. I can't thank them enough. This is still an ongoing investigation. All of the information that we have has been forwarded to the state attorney's office so that if there's going to be charges, that's up to them. They will make a filing decision. So all the information we have has already been packaged and already been sent to the state attorney so that they can make a determination on, you know, if this was if this is going to be ruled child neglect or, you know, anything of that nature. I can tell you, based on our investigation and what we know, there's no obvious signs of foul play. The apartment was clean. She has food in there. You know, it's a very comfortable environment for the children. So as it stands right now, all things are subject to change. But as it stands right now, from what we can tell, this appears to be an extremely tragic accident. But again, as far as charges, that's going to be on the state attorney. So I will answer a few questions. And then if there's any additional, you guys know how to get a hold of the PIO and she can you know answer those that are appropriate yes so um we called out we do what's referred to as a critical incident debrief and we bring in a doctor a therapist and they sit down and it allows them an opportunity to unpack it allows them an opportunity to decompress so i'm grateful for that doctor because she was here at 7 p.m last night to brief patrol and then she did the same thing at 11 p.m. today for the investigators you see standing behind me. And if they need further, you know, she's willing to come out and do whatever, you know, whatever we need to make sure that they are good. I didn't mention the depth of it because I don't know. I don't have that information. The five-year-old, yes. The five-year-old did have an autism diagnosis, yes. I understand that he was also blind. I wasn't aware of that, no. I can't confirm that. I can't confirm that. I'm not aware of that either. Chief, you mentioned that there was a time period that went by before 911 was called. Is that because the mother didn't immediately see the children in the water, or was she searching somewhere else? There was about a 22-minute time lapse, and during those 22 minutes, she was trying to do her due diligence to see if she could locate the children before calling 911. They were already, based on what we can see now on the surveillance video, they were already submerged in the water. I'm going to leave it there, and then any follow-up questions you guys can do with the PIO.