The lifeless body of a missing 8-year-old boy was found in a pond near the school’s playground where he was last seen Thursday morning.
Lionel Ramirez Cervantes, who was autistic, ran off from Bell’s Crossing Elementary School in Simpsonville at around 11 a.m.
School employees chased after the boy but failed to catch up with him after he jumped a fence and disappeared.
The Greenville County Sheriff’s Office announced that Lionel’s body was found in a nearby pond at around 3 p.m.
“This is truly a terrible situation to be quite honest. At some point, we don’t know how or why, he wound up in that pond,” Sheriff Hobart Lewis said.
“There are a lot of broken hearts in the school and this community today, we want to thank the community who came out to search for this young man.”
