12-year-old New Orleans boy dies after alligator attack

Bryan Vasquez, a 12-year-old nonverbal boy from New Orleans, died after an apparent alligator attack, officials said Wednesday. Bryan disappeared from his East New Orleans home on the morning of Aug. 14 and his body was recovered more than a week later on Aug. 26 in a lagoon near the Michoud neighborhood, roughly 200 yards into marshland from where he was last seen, authorities said.

A spokesperson for the Orleans Parish coroner’s office said the preliminary cause of death was drowning with blunt force trauma consistent with an alligator attack. New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said investigators believe Bryan was attacked by an alligator and subsequently drowned, but that the precise timing of his death remains unclear. Kirkpatrick called the discovery “a profoundly sad day, but a day for some closure” and said the investigation continues.

Bryan was reported missing after reportedly climbing out of his bedroom window at about 5:20 a.m. on Aug. 14, police said. Surveillance footage showed him walking alone less than a mile from his home wearing only an adult diaper. The boy, who had a neurodevelopmental disorder and was nonverbal, had recently moved with his...