April 3, | 3: 40 pm | Updated April 3, 2020 3: pm
Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean (pink dress), seen here with her husband David McKean (left) and family, has gone missing along with her son Gideon Joseph Kennedy McKean. Getty Images for Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Gala and Auction
A grand-niece of President John F. Kennedy and her son disappeared off the coast of Maryland – and search crews have been scrambling to find them for nearly , hours, according to a report Friday.
Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean, the granddaughter of
Robert F. Kennedy , was at her mother’s home in Shady Side overlooking the Chesapeake Bay at 4 pm Thursday when she and her 8-year-old son, Gideon Joseph Kennedy McKean, hopped into a canoe, according to
the Washington Post .
The child had been kicking a ball with other kids when it fell into the water, and the pair went to retrieve it amid high winds, her husband, David McKean, told the paper.
“[They] popped into a canoe to chase it down. They just got farther out than they could handle, and couldn’t get back in, ”David McKean said.
McKean, 59, was at the home of her mother, former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, when she went missing, he said.
Maeve Kennedy McKean greets Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) During a rally. CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images David McKean refused to say whether the boat had been found, but the Maryland Department of Natural Resources police told the paper that one matching its description had been recovered.
A concerned person called authorities around 4: 33 PM Thursday to say he had seen the canoe near the Columbia Beach pier, according to Capt. Erik Kornmeyer, a spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Fire Department.
The caller reported that boaters were “seen struggling to return to shore in a canoe” near Herring Bay amid high winds before vanishing, the Coast Guard said.
Rescuers searched for the missing pair until nightfall Thursday and began again Friday morning, to no avail. A spokesman for the US Coast Guard told the Washington Post the wind in that part of the bay reached about 75 mph Thursday afternoon, with waves 2 to 3 feet high.
The Kennedy family has been plagued by tragedies ranging from the assassinations of McKean’s grandfather and great-uncle to the death of her cousin Saoirse Kennedy Hill last year.
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