Missing Three-year-old Boy Found Alive

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

Casey Hathaway, a 3-year-old boy who disappeared a few days ago from the patio of his grandmother's house in North Carolina, was found alive. The boy was found Thursday night by a Craven County search and rescue team. Shelley Lynch, a spokesperson for the FBI's Charlotte office, gave the good news of the rescue in a statement. The little boy appears to be in good health but is being treated at the Carolina East Medical Center. The boy is already reunited with his relatives.

Breanna Hathaway, who identified herself in a Facebook post as the boy's aunt, also confirmed that the boy had been found alive. "Casey is healthy, smiling and talking," he said on the social network. "He says he spent time with a bear for two days. God sent him a friend to take care of him. Miracles do exist.”

The details of the boy's disappearance are not yet known. Casey was playing outside her grandmother's Craven County home with two other children Tuesday but did not return to the home when the other two children entered, Lynch said in a statement sent to PEOPLE.

"A relative in the house looked for Casey and when he couldn't find him, he called 911," Lynch added. According to WTVD reports, the children were playing in the yard of their grandmother's house, who searched for the little boy for about 45 minutes before calling authorities and reporting him as missing.

Despite heavy rains and winds, search teams and desperate family members searched for him nonstop in the wooded areas around the home. The Craven County Sheriff said at a press conference Wednesday, before finding the boy, that his case was being investigated as that of a missing person, although the possibility of a kidnapping had not been ruled out. Fortunately, the little one is safe and back home with his loved ones.