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The hope of hundreds is not enough. A missing boy is found dead in a Pasco County lake after an extensive search.
By BRADY DENNIS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 26, 2002
DADE CITY -- As word spread through the neighborhood, volunteers hung their heads and hugged, then slowly walked to their cars. Salvation Army relief workers packed up tables of food and drinks and drove away. TV crews put away their cameras. Neighbors and friends arrived at the Nystrom house to offer sympathy.
Bobby Nystrom was dead.
"There's nothing worse that could have ever happened than to lose my boy," Bobby's father, Joe Nystrom, said Friday afternoon.
About 9:15 a.m. Friday, a Sheriff's Office boat spotted the 2-year-old floating on the water of Lake Pasadena about 100 feet from a boat ramp. His body was partly obscured by a lily pad.
Investigators said that although the boy's death appeared to be a drowning, the case remained under investigation. The cause of death was not released, pending a medical examiner's autopsy scheduled for today.
"There are no obvious signs of trauma (on his body)," said sheriff's spokesman Jon Powers. "At this point, everything is consistent with drowning."
The discovery ended a nearly 21-hour search for the boy, who loved McDonald's food and wrestling with his 5-year-old twin brothers.
Deputies said Marcia Nystrom last saw her son about 11:45 a.m. Thursday inside the family's house at 11546 Meadowlane Drive. She told deputies she went into another room to work on some church gift baskets.
Deputies said she returned about a half hour later to find Bobby gone. The family's two cocker spaniels, Blackie and Duke, were out of their pen; the gate was open.
One dog returned wet. A neighbor found the other dog shivering and scared in some tall weeds, prompting searchers to focus on the nearby lake.
As dusk came, more than 250 volunteers, armed with flashlights, canvassed the thick woods and marshlands around the lake in search of Bobby.
The 60 law enforcement officers and 50 firefighters on the scene proved just as relentless, searching for the boy with three helicopters, two airboats, six four-wheelers, several dogs and a personal watercraft.
But they turned up nothing.
As a heavy fog approached, volunteers stopped searching shortly after 11 p.m.
The search started again Friday at first light and continued until deputies found Bobby's body.
This wasn't the first time the boy had wandered away from home, Sheriff Bob White said.
Only a week earlier, his mother found him by the lake.
The boy took frequent walks to the lake with his father, so he knew the path, authorities said.
As crews scoured the area early Friday, Marcia Nystrom, 48, sat on a couch crying. A social worker held her hand and assured her: "You know this isn't your fault."
After the boy was found, Joe Nystrom, a 41-year-old family practice physician, praised the volunteers, many of them medical employees who searched in their blue scrubs.
"We've had a lot of support; everyone wanted to help. People showed up we didn't even know existed. It's a demonstration of what Dade City and Zephyrhills is all about."