{"id":435346,"date":"2026-10-22T23:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T23:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/435346\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T23:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T23:10:11","slug":"missing-florida-boy-with-autism-found-dead-in-canal-after-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/435346\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing Florida boy with autism found dead in canal after search"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Muhammad<\/a>CAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n

A 7-year-old nonverbal boy with autism drowned Saturday in a canal near Northeast 13th Place and 19th Terrace in Cape Coral after a community search effort.<\/p>\n

Kayden McIntosh said he was in his garage Saturday night when he heard a woman screaming.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said her autistic, nonverbal son had run away from home and had a phone with him. They knew he was near the water because he had dropped the phone,\u201d McIntosh said.<\/p>\n

The phone\u2019s last known location led McIntosh and his friend to begin searching for the boy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe both ran out and jumped into the water, up and down the river. We ended up getting kayaks from the neighbors around,\u201d McIntosh said.<\/p>\n

Cape Coral police said they received a call about the missing child at 8:45 p.m. Video from the scene showed Cape Coral fire crews, police and Lee County EMS working together. Police said the search involved a UAV, officers and firefighters along the canal banks. Nearby residents also helped.<\/p>\n

McIntosh found the boy nearly 30 minutes later, tangled underwater.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was already unconscious at that point and just pale blue,\u201d McIntosh said.<\/p>\n

Police said lifesaving measures were performed but were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

The boy\u2019s family described him as a beautiful child and said they had moved into the neighborhood earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was definitely glad we found him. Anyway, the mother does have closure. It was definitely upsetting, especially, you know, again, he and I weren\u2019t looking for any trophies,\u201d McIntosh said.<\/p>\n

The family said they were waiting for the medical examiner\u2019s office to contact them so they could retrieve his body. Police did not disclose how long the boy had been in the canal.<\/p>\n

DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014 A 7-year-old nonverbal boy with autism drowned Saturday in a canal near Northeast 13th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[170458,13709,1778,209,170462,170455,211,210,212,2353,170454,132782,104,1089,170460,5990,28,170461,170459,213,2763,42906,84914,170453,170457,1224,4428,132,12320,133221,170456,4103,57346],"class_list":["post-435346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-19th-terrace","tag-autism","tag-canal","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-boy","tag-cape-coral-fire-crews","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-cape-coral-police","tag-child","tag-community-search","tag-drowned","tag-entertainment","tag-family","tag-family-closure","tag-firefighter","tag-florida","tag-florida-boy","tag-kayden-mcintosh","tag-late-news","tag-lee-county-ems","tag-medical-examiner","tag-missing-boy","tag-nonverbal-boy","tag-northeast-13th-place","tag-officer","tag-phone","tag-police","tag-search","tag-search-effort","tag-uav","tag-water","tag-water-rescue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}