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Body of missing 6-year-old boy recovered in Delaware canal following deadly crash

After a tireless four-day search involving numerous agencies, sonar and Pennsylvania state cadaver dogs, crews Thursday found the body of 6-year-old Ethan Lindsey on the north bank of the canal, a quarter mile west of the Route 1 William V. Roth Bridge, Delaware State Police said.

Emergency personnel, including divers, work on the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal where a vehicle plunged into the water from South Canal Road, west of St. Georges, Del., Sunday, Oct. 6, 2019. (William Bretzger/The News Journal via AP)
Emergency personnel, including divers, work on the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal where a vehicle plunged into the water from South Canal Road, west of St. Georges, Del., Sunday, Oct. 6, 2019. (William Bretzger/The News Journal via AP)Read moreWILLIAM BRETZGER / AP

Officials on Thursday recovered the body of a 6-year-old boy who died with three of his family members after their station wagon plunged into the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal in Middletown, Del., last weekend.

After a four-day search involving numerous agencies, sonar and Pennsylvania state cadaver dogs, crews found Ethan Lindsey’s body on the north bank, a quarter mile west of the Route 1 William V. Roth Bridge, Delaware State Police said.

On Sunday morning, their Chevrolet HHR veered from a gravel road and into the 35-foot-deep shipping canal about a mile west of the bridge, killing four people.

In addition to Ethan, victims included his brothers, Willis Lindsey, Jr., 18, who was driving, and Kyree Lindsey, 16, and their 12-year-old cousin, Eric Lindsey. The vehicle and bodies of the teenagers and their cousin were recovered Sunday, while a search continued this week for Ethan.

Now, all four family members have been accounted for.

“Through all the hard work and dedication they have found my little man so he can be back with his brothers and cousin,” the boy’s father, Willis Lindsey Sr., wrote in a Facebook post Thursday.

The group was on the way to a football game when the crash occurred, 6ABC reported.

A 16-year-old — described as Willis Lindsey’s girlfriend — survived the crash, telling police her boyfriend helped her to shore and died trying to reach his brothers and cousin as their station wagon sank in about 20 feet of water.

“I wouldn’t have expected him to do anything different. Knowing him, I couldn’t see him doing nothing different. He did what he was supposed to do as a big brother,” Willis Lindsey Sr. told CBS3.