ORMOND BEACH, Fla. – The body of a missing four-year-old boy in Ormond Beach was found on Sunday in a pond near the playground he wandered off from hours earlier.
Now, his family wants to prevent that from happening to anyone else and hopes to get a law passed in the child’s name.
Police said Waylon Childs was at the playground in Central Park on Sunday morning with his father and siblings. Police said the father called for help after Childs wandered off and he could not find him.
Childs was autistic and non-verbal. Residents all around the park helped look for Childs while the police and Volusia County Dive Team searched the park and the pond in the park. Police said his body was found around 9 p.m.
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Thomas Walters and his wife live a few streets away from the park and helped with the search.
“I was looking up and down, checking cars, seeing if he was possibly hiding somewhere,” Walters said. “We have three autistic kids ourselves, so we felt really related to this. It was the worst case scenario that could have happened.”
Walters said he hopes the city will put a fence around the playground which sits just yards from the large pond.
Childs’ family friend Trisha Kelly told News 6 they would like to go further than that by getting a law passed.
“A law we’re trying to put in place in Waylon’s name to protect all children at the parks when there is water around. A fenced in area with a child-proof gate where children cannot get out,” Kelly said. “When parents enter the playground area it’ll have a locked gate behind them and prevent the children from venturing off into the woods or into the water and we’d like to do this in all parks.”
Kelly said Childs’ parents are devastated by their loss, but want to prevent this tragedy from happening again
“They loved Waylon unconditionally, always with him, always playing with him. He is non-verbal and autistic, but that made him a very special kid,” she said.
The boy’s family set up a GoFundMe to help raise money for funeral arrangements. If you’d like to donate, click here.
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