NAYLOR — The search for a missing Naylor toddler ended tragically Monday night when she was found in a pond on the family’s property.
Reese Ainley, 3, was pronounced dead at 7:20 p.m. by a doctor at Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center, according to Missouri State Highway Patrol Cpl. J.T. Wilson.
The girl went missing at about 4 p.m., after she arrived home with her mother and another child.
The woman, Wilson said, later saw their dogs in the yard and thought the dogs must have followed the child.
Wilson said the mother subsequently searched different places and got “more and more panicked” when she couldn’t find her daughter and called authorities.
According to Wilson, there were a “ton of people, 50 to 100 people — family, first responders, fire and rescue” personnel who assisted in the search.
The child was found in a pond near the home by a volunteer firefighter at about 6:15 p.m., Wilson said. The pond was located south of Ripley County Road N3.
“She was about 10 feet off the bank,” said Wilson, who estimated the water depth at about four to five feet.
“They got her, took her by ambulance and hoped for a miracle,” Wilson said.
The child’s death is one of the worst ones he has been called to investigate, Wilson said.
Wilson said the investigation continues, due to how distraught the child’s parents were Monday night.
“As a parent, I don’t know how to deal with that,” Wilson said.
_____
Story updated at 7 p.m.