The body of a one-year-old boy who went missing in Florida over the weekend has been found submerged in a septic tank at his home, police say.
Jose Lara went missing on Sunday afternoon. He was last seen playing with his sister outside their house in Crescent City, about an hour from Daytona Beach.
Jose’s mother briefly took his sister inside to clean her up and returned to find Jose missing, according to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office. The toy truck that he was playing with was found in the yard.
Authorities conducted a massive search operation with the help of bloodhounds, drones, helicopters and night-vision tools to find the boy.
After several bloodhounds were unable to find the boy, the search team decided to look around an area covered with weeds, dirt, and plywood and began to clean up a septic tank.
Authorities decided to drain the septic tank after an investigator spotted that the overgrown area looked disturbed.
“It’s my unfortunate task today to tell you that the search for Jose Lara has ended with the recovery of Jose’s body,” Putnam County Sheriff HD Gator DeLoach said in a press conference on Monday night.
The sheriff said the septic tank, just 40 yards from the house, was covered with rotted plywood, and the child is believed to have stepped on it.
“Underneath the layer of dirt, there was a piece of plywood that had been there for some time and appeared it had rotted to the extent so that when he stepped on it, he actually fell in,” Mr DeLoach said.
The police said they suspect nothing suspicious as of now but an investigation is underway.
“There’s nothing to indicate at this point that there was any type of foul play suspected, but it is still an active investigation,” Mr DeLoach said.
