Local News

Police continue to investigate death of 7-year-old boy found dead in water

Kyzr's mother Melissa Willis is comforted Wednesday outside her home in Dorchester. Pat Greenhouse / The Boston Globe

July 27, 2016

3 minutes to read

Boston police are continuing to investigate the death of a 7-year-old boy whose body was found in the water at Carson Beach Tuesday. In addition, the city is reviewing the city-run program from which he disappeared.

“It’s my hope and expectation as mayor that no family ever has to go through this type of loss,” Walsh said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon. “Thousands of families entrust their kids to us here in the city of Boston to our different programs, and we take that trust very seriously.”

Kyzr Willis was last seen at the beach, coming out of the water around 2:15 p.m. near the L Street bathhouse in South Boston. The facility is is attached to the Curley Community Center that hosts the program he was attending.

“We had a lot of conflicting information. You can imagine, we had a lot of little kids telling us different things,” Boston Police Commissioner William Evans said at the press conference. “Unfortunately, around 7 p.m. we made the worst discovery we could, and that was the young child in the water.”

Kyzr Willis.

Kyzr’s body was recovered from the water about 50 yards behind the bathhouse. Evans said police are waiting for an autopsy report to determine how long Kyzr was in the water.

The community center’s director has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the ongoing investigation, Walsh said. The facility will reopen to adults Thursday, and the camp will begin accepting children again on Monday.

During the search for Kyzr, police said they didn’t expect foul play, and believed that Kyzr had wandered away from the camp on his own. Patrols, K-9 and marine unites, and air wings from state police and the U.S. Coast Guard combed the area searching for him.

Kyzr’s mother, Melissa Willis, told The Boston Globe that the camp never informed her that her son was missing. Instead, her 9-year-old niece called, telling her that the counselors were unable to locate Kyzr.

“I sent my kids to a camp! Y’all is responsible for them!” she told the Globe. “I put them in your hands! I put them in your care! And all of the sudden, you don’t know what happened?”

Walsh said he could not confirm who contacted Kyzr’s mother initially.

The program, which is operated by the Boston Center for Youth & Families, serves as a drop-in camp, Walsh said. Rather than servicing a specific number of enrolled children each day, the facility takes children based on family needs.

It’s one of 50 similar programs across the city, and typically services 50 to 70 children each day, Walsh said. On Tuesday, when Kyzr went missing, between 50 and 60 children were at the center, he said.

“Drop-in programs are affordable options for parents looking for activities for their kids,” he said. “We try not to turn anyone away, because these families have no other options for them.”

The program, which Walsh called a “safe haven” for low-income families with limited childcare options, is overseen by the center’s director, a program supervisor, assistant program supervisor, and around 25 teen counselors between the ages of 15 and 18. The city also staffs Carson Beach with eight lifeguards, placing two on duty where the children swim, according to Walsh.

The city’s review of the program is independent of the police investigation into Kyzr’s death, Walsh said. The staffers at the Curley Community Center will return to their jobs at the facility Monday.

“You can’t blame 28 people working the center for what happened,” Walsh said. “We going to continue to work now and take this terrible tragedy and see how we can even improve what we have.”