Elijah, 3, and Kashh, 5, Went Missing Saturday — Hours Later They Were Found in a Pond

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.

The search ended the way every parent in America fears it might. Elijah Hawkins, 3, and Kashh Williams, 5 — two little boys reported missing in Daytona Beach on Saturday — were found deceased in a nearby pond, the Daytona Beach Police Department announced at around 2:30 Sunday morning.

The boys had been reported missing on Saturday, October 10. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which identified the children, they were last seen walking in the “immediate area” of 1361 N. Clyde Morris Blvd. in Daytona Beach. At 7:05 p.m. Saturday, Daytona Beach police posted the missing-child alert to their Facebook page and asked the public for help.

FOX 35 Orlando, which followed the search through the evening, reported that the children — 5-year-old Elijah and 3-year-old Kashh — were last seen in the 1300 block of North Clyde Morris Boulevard, walking on foot. Anyone with information was urged to call the Daytona Beach Police Department.

Then, in the small hours of Sunday, the update nobody wanted. “The two missing children have been located deceased in a nearby pond,” the department’s Facebook post stated. In the same message, police asked for space to do their work and for kindness toward the family: “We ask that the community allow us time to continue our investigation into the circumstances surrounding this incident. We also ask that everyone be mindful and respectful of the family’s privacy as they navigate this difficult time.”

What police are saying — and what they’re not

The department was explicit that it has no more to share right now. “We appreciate the community’s understanding during this difficult time,” the post said, with the department noting it would not be providing additional statements or interviews at this time.

Authorities have not released any details about the circumstances surrounding the children’s deaths, FOX 35 reported. There is no official word on how the boys ended up in the pond, how long they may have been missing before the search began, or what the pond is — only that it is “nearby” the area where they were last seen.

That restraint is deliberate. In cases like this, the investigation has to answer its own questions before the public gets answers to theirs. What is known is the timeline: missing Saturday afternoon, a public alert by early evening, and the devastating confirmation before dawn Sunday. What comes next is the medical examiner’s work and the police investigation — and for the family, a kind of grief that doesn’t have a name.

A community asked to hold its breath

For the hours between the 7:05 p.m. alert and the 2:30 a.m. announcement, Daytona Beach was doing what communities do — sharing the alert, searching, hoping. The department’s request for privacy lands in the middle of that impulse. When two children die within hours of going missing, the instinct is to know everything, immediately. The police are asking the opposite: give us time, give the family room.

It is the second tragedy to shake the region’s sense of safety in a single week. The Daytona Beach News-Journal, which first reported the boys’ deaths, has also been covering Hurricane Isaias’s landfall on the Florida Panhandle — a reminder that this stretch of Florida is having a brutal October.

What we know — and what we don’t

Here is where the record stands, drawn only from what authorities have said. We know the boys’ names and ages, confirmed through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. We know they were last seen walking near 1361 N. Clyde Morris Blvd. on Saturday afternoon, and that Daytona Beach police asked the public for help at 7:05 p.m. We know they were found deceased in a nearby pond, and that police announced it at around 2:30 a.m. Sunday. We know the department is investigating the circumstances and has asked for privacy for the family.

We don’t know how the boys reached the pond, how long they were in the water, or whether the pond is on private property, part of a development, or something else entirely. Police have not said whether foul play is suspected or has been ruled out, or when the investigation might conclude. None of that is unusual this early — it is the silence that investigations require, not a sign that answers aren’t coming.

The cruelest context in Florida

What happened in Daytona Beach is, statistically, the nightmare Florida knows best. According to the Florida Department of Health, drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death for children ages 1 to 4 in the state. The Florida Department of Children and Families reports that 119 children drowned in Florida in 2025, and nearly 80% of them were under age 3. The state’s message to parents is blunt and constant: supervise, use barriers, teach swimming, learn CPR — and if a child goes missing, check the water first.

Nothing about those numbers explains Saturday. They don’t say what happened to Elijah and Kashh, and they don’t soften what happened to their family. They only say that Florida’s water is everywhere — pools, ponds, lakes, canals — and that for small children, seconds and feet can be the whole story.

There is nothing else to say that the facts support. Two boys went missing Saturday. They were found in a pond early Sunday. The police are investigating. The family is grieving. The rest — the how, the why, the lessons — will have to wait for investigators, and for time the family does not owe anyone.