Four days after Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean and her 8-year-old son Gideon disappeared after getting into a canoe to retrieve a kickball from the Chesapeake Bay, the 39-year-old’s body and her son’s body have been found.
According to reports, Maeve’s body was discovered one day before her and David McKean‘s oldest son’s remains were located. As Mamas Uncut previously reported, in a Facebook post shared by David, the husband and father wrote that they had decided to retreat to Maeve’s mother’s Shady Side property while quarantining, “hoping to give our kids more space than we have at home in DC to run around.”
Maeve and Gideon were playing kickball in a cove on the property when the ball accidentally entered the bay. That’s when the mother-and-son pair hopped into the canoe to retrieve the ball. According to a spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard, the wind was blowing at about 30 miles-per-hour and the waves were about two to three feet high on April 2.
As David also shared in his Facebook post, the only sighting of Maeve and Gideon after they got into the canoe around 4:00 p.m. that Thursday afternoon occurred around 4:30 p.m. when someone called to say he saw the canoe from the Columbia Beach pier.
The Body of Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean and Her 8-Year-old Son Have Been Found
“They were spotted by an onlooker from land, who saw them far out from shore and called the police,” David wrote on Facebook. “After that last sighting, they were not seen again. The Coast Guard recovered their canoe, which was capsized and miles away, at approximately 6:30 yesterday evening.”
He wrote at the time, “The search that began yesterday afternoon went on throughout the night and continued all day today. It is now dark again. It has been more than 24 hours, and the chances they have survived are impossibly small. It is clear that Maeve and Gideon have passed away.”
In a statement issued by the Maryland Natural Resources Police, authorities revealed that “after a days-long search that involved aviation and underwater imaging solar technology, authorities recovered missing person, Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean, on April 6 at approximately 5:31 pm.”
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The mom of three’s body was discovered in 25 feet of water, approximately 2.5 miles south of her mother’s bayfront home. According to CBS News, approximately 120 members of the Kennedy family held a prayer service on the video conferencing app known as Zoom.
After Meave’s body was found, the search for Gideon’s continued. On April 8, it was reported that the 8-year-old’s remains were found 2,000 feet from where his mother was discovered.