The Father Of The Boy Found Dead In North Carolina Spoke

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

Ian Ritch, the father of the missing 6-year-old autistic boy from North Carolina, shared a heartbreaking message after the boy's body was found.

Authorities are still investigating what happened to Maddox Ritch when his father lost sight of him last Saturday in a park in the town of Gastonia, until his body was found on Thursday.

“Today I have learned that I am no longer a dad. I had big plans for my son. I wanted to go fishing with him, play ball, camping. He wanted to be his hero, to tell me that for him I was superior to Batman or Superman,”he says in the message he shared on Facebook. “Now I'm not a hero, I couldn't protect or save him. He would give everything to go back in time and save him. Although there are people who do not believe anything I have told, that they do believe it."

Ritch assures that until the end of his days he will live with "the guilt" of not having been able to avoid the death of the little boy, who according to his account ran away after a person who was practicing jogging and when he tried to catch him, he had lost sight.

After five days of an intense search, authorities reported Thursday that the body had been found in a stream two to three feet deep, just a mile away from the park where his father claimed to have lost it.

The father's account has raised suspicions, according to People, but Ritch has maintained that he did everything he could to find the little boy. I tried to find him. Others suggest that I did something to him. I would never hurt my little boy. I want him like life, I just want him to come back,”he told the magazine.

The mother, Carrie Ritch, had pleaded Tuesday at an emotional press conference to help them locate her son. "He is mom's boy, I want to have him in my arms again."